Pakistan human rights icon I.A. Rehman dead

He was an advocate of Indo-Pak. peace

Pakistani Human rights crusader and former journalist Ibn Abdur Rehman, who won the Ramon Magsaysay award for his work on fostering India-Pakistan relations, passed away in Lahore on Monday aged 90. I.A. Rehman, as he was called, had several run-ins with the Pakistani establishment as he took a bold stand against atrocities by Pakistani forces in East Pakistan (later Bangladesh) in 1971, marital law under General Zia ul Haq and later the emergency imposed by General Pervez Musharraf, and fought for several causes, including minority rights and excesses by security forces. Announcing his death, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, where he served as Director from 1990-2008, and Secretary General from 2008-2016 called him a “titan of human rights” adding that “his integrity, conscience and compassion were unparalleled.” During that time he often raised the issue of freeing Indian fishermen and prisoners with the Pakistani government. “He was always available, and was always ready to help any Indian in need of assistance in Pakistan, and unafraid to be vocal about their problems,” Jatin Desai, who works on similar issues for Pakistani civilian prisoners in India, told The Hindu. One of the cases Mr. Rehman took up strongly was that of Hamid Ansari, a 33-year old software engineer who travelled to Pakistan in 2012 to try and meet a girl he had met online, and was arrested as “an Indian spy”. Mr. Ansari was released in 2018, in large part due to the efforts of human rights activists, including Mr. Rehman, and a young journalist Zeenat Shahzadi, who was mysteriously abducted and later detained, reportedly because of her decision to take up Mr. Ansari’s case.