By Muhammad Luqman
United Nations has awarded the co-founder of Human Rights Commission of Pakistan with prestigious Human Rights Award posthumously for the year 2018.
In a tweet on Friday, President of the United Nations General Assembly María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés, announced that the prestigious UN Prize in the Field of Human Rights was to be awarded jointly to Asma Jahangir, Rebeca Gyumi (a Tanzanian women’s rights activist), Joenia Wapichana (a Brazilian activist for the rights of indigenous communities) and Front Line Defenders (an Irish-based human rights organization). Ms Garcés added that their ‘work is an inspiration to us all.’
Apart from the sheer scale of her work in human rights across Pakistan, Ms 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.
The prize is awarded every five years for outstanding achievements in the field of human rights. Previous winners have included such icons as Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela. This year, the award will coincide with the celebration of the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Asma Jahangir had died in Pakistan’s eastern city of Lahore on February 11 this year.
