Asma Jahangir Convention

Press release

Asma Jahangir Convention

Lahore, 05 April 2018: The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has announced that the Asma Jahangir Convention will take place on 7–8 April 2018 at the Alhamra Art Center (Hall 1), The Mall, Lahore. Being held in conjunction with Shirkatgah, the Aurat Foundation, the South Asian Free Media Association (SAFMA), Simorgh and South Asia Partnership Pakistan (SAP-PK), the event is intended not only to honour the late Asma Jahangir, but also to discuss how members of civil society can pick up the mantle. HRCP said that it was critical that old partnerships were reinforced and new ones built among the different groups and causes to which Ms Jahangir had devoted her life: from lawyers, women’s rights activists and journalists to the peasants’ movement, workers’ rights and the rights of religious minorities—among countless others.

The session on Saturday 7 April includes a series of personal tributes to Ms Jahangir as well as the soft launch of State of Human Rights in 2017, HRCP’s flagship annual report. The sessions on 8 April examine Pakistan’s sociopolitical crisis and ways of taking forward the agendas to which HRCP is committed: freedom of religious belief, freedom of expression and association, women’s rights, democracy and the rule of law, the rights of workers and peasants, and the overarching need to mobilise people at all levels around human rights causes as well as Pakistan’s environmental crisis. Among the speakers are former senator Farhatullah Babar, veteran journalist I. A. Rehman, lawyer and human rights activist Hina Jilani, Senator Afrasiab Khattak and Pir Kaleem Khursheed, president of the Supreme Court Bar Association.

Dr. Mehdi Hasan

Chairperson

Category: English