Leader of human rights campaign group dies after battle with cancer
TRIBUTES HAVE been paid to the director of a Yorkshire racial justice and civil liberties campaign group after her death this weekend.
Ratna Lachman, who has led JUST West Yorkshire since 2008, was praised for her “lifetime of work that aimed to systematically dismantle structures that perpetuate inequality”.
The former broadcaster and journalist came to the UK in 1990 to study in London and helped set up campaign groups in the South West before taking up her role in Yorkshire.
JUST was set up in 2003 by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust and describes itself as “a leading voice in the North promoting racial justice, civil liberties and human rights”.
A statement on its website said: “Ratna, throughout her lifetime spoke truth to power – steadfast, unapologetic and uncompromising in her relentless determination to secure freedoms and equality for minorities are just some of the characteristics and values Ratna lived by.”
Nadeem Murtuja, chairman of JUST, said: “Ratna will be incredibly missed – she is, and always will be an irreplaceable force – championing the cause of human rights, civil liberties, feminism and mainly Muslims, who she felt had been hung out to dry since this horrific ill-fated war on terror.
“Ratna had a simple view, and that was that all of our freedoms were connected… whether those be religious freedom, feminism or choice – none of these were mutually exclusive. To stand up for one freedom was equal to standing up for them all.”
He added: “She fought throughout her lifetime, even during when this disease of cancer had taken a grip on her own life, she still fought tirelessly for the human rights of others, whilst forsaking her own.
“Without Ratna, there would be no JUST, and without JUST we (the board members and staff) would not have been brought together to carry forward the remarkable work of a remarkable human being.”