Table of Contents
EARLY LIFE
- Jahangir was born on 27th january 1952 into a prosperous and politically active Kakazai Pashtun family with a history of activism and human rights work.
- Her father, Malik Ghulam Jilani, was a civil servant who entered politics upon retirement and spent years both in jail and under house arrest for opposing military dictatorships.
- Her mother, Begum Sabiha Jilani (1927–2012),was educated at a co-ed college named Forman Christian College situated in Lahore, at a time when few Muslim women even received higher education.
EDUCATION
- She received her B.A. from Kinnaird College, Lahore and her law degree in 1978,and her Bachelor of Laws (LLB) degree from Punjab University.
- She also holds an honorary doctorate from University of St. Gallen in Switzerland.,Queens University, Canada, Simon Fraser University, Canada and Cornell University, United States. She was married and had a son and two daughters, Munizae Jahangir, a journalist and Sulema Jahangir, who is also a lawyer.
ACTIVISM
- She spent her career defending the human and women’s rights, rights of religious minorities and children in Pakistan.
- In 1980, Jahangir and her sister, Hina Jilani, got together with fellow activists and lawyers to form the first law firm established by women in Pakistan.
- On 12 February 1983, the Punjab Women Lawyers Association in Lahore organised a public protest (one of its leaders was Jahangir) against the Proposed Law of Evidence, during which Jahangir and other participating WAF members were beaten, teargassed, and arrested by police.
ACTIVISM
- Jahangir campaigned against human rights abuses taking place in government and police custody in Pakistan.
- In 1996, the Lahore High Court ruled that an adult Muslim woman could not get married without the consent of her male guardian (wali).
- Jahangir demanded that the government of Parvez Musharraf work to improve the record of human rights domestically
ACTIVISM
- Asma Jahangir served as the UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Executions from 1998 to 2004, and as the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion and Belief from 2004 to 2010. • In her capacity as a UN official, Jahangir was in Pakistan, when Pervez Musharraf declared a state of emergency in 2007.
HOUSE ARREST
- On 5 November 2007, The Economist reported that “Over 500 lawyers, opposition politicians and human rights activists have been arrested.
- They include Asma Jahangir, boss of the country’s human-rights commission and a former UN special rapporteur.
- In an e-mail from her house arrest, where she has been placed for 90 days, Ms Jahangir regretted that General Musharraf had ‘lost his marbles'” DEATH
- Jahangir suffered from a stroke leading to brain hemorrhage in Lahore on 11 February 2018 and later died in hospital.
- In addition to many publications, Jahangir has authored two books: Divine Sanction?
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