| Stories Of Change | |
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By-SAWNET |
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ASMA JAHANGIR WAS JUST 20 - and not even a lawyer yet - when she launched her first legal battle in Pakistan. Her father, a distinguished member of the ruling elite and a legislator in the National Assembly, had been detained by Benazir Bhutto's father, then president of Pakistan. Nobody dared represent Jahangir's father. Except his daughter. She filed a constitutional petition in the Supreme Court challenging his arrest, and questioning whether the Bhutto government had come to power legally. That was in 1972; in a landmark judgment ten years later she won her case.
Now, as one of Pakistan's foremost lawyers and a leading advocate of women's rights, Jahangir is always in the thick of battle. And the victories are even longer in coming. In 1982 she earned the nickname "little heroine" after leading a protest march in Islamabad against a decision by then-president Zia ul Haq to enforce religious laws. In quick succession, Jahangir started a law practice with her sister, founded the Women's Action Forum to promote legal reform and was arrested for sedition. In 1986 she helped start up the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan and now serves as co-chairperson. "Family laws [which are religious laws] give women few rights," says Jahangir. "They have to be reformed because Pakistan cannot live in isolation. We cannot remain shackled while other women progress." Nor, she says, can Pakistan succumb to religious intolerance. That's why in February she defended two Christians accused by a Muslim imam of blasphemy. She won the much-publicized trial, but has received death threats ever since. Indeed, for the past year she has had to travel with an armed bodyguard. The 43-year-old also won the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award for public service this year. And she could have been Pakistan's first female judge, except that she refused the offer. ''It would be hypocrisy to defend laws I don't believe in, like capital punishment, the blasphemy law and laws against women and in favor of child labor,'' she says. She does, though, talk of forming a new, liberal party. No doubt she's up to the challenge. |
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