Thousands bid adieu to Asma Jahangir
lahore — Pakistan bid farewell to its top rights advocate Asma Jahangir on Tuesday, with thousands cramming into a major cricket ground under tight security to grieve the diminutive woman described by some as the country’s “moral compass”.
Lawyers dressed in black blazers, leading politicians, intellectuals and activists joined citizens flooding Lahore’s Gaddafi Stadium, where camera drones flew overhead as mourners accompanied the body with flowers and wreaths.
“Asma’s death has created a wide gap that looks to be never filled,” one attendee, college teacher Said Raheem Ul Haque, told AFP as the service began.
Jahangir, who died of cardiac arrest on Sunday aged 66, was a lawyer who co-founded the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan and also served as United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights in Iran.
She was widely admired in the international humanitarian community and was seen as a champion of the downtrodden in Pakistan, which has a troubled rights record, especially for minorities.
Her death has sparked an outpouring of tributes from global human rights groups and political leaders, including the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres — who called her a “human rights giant” — and Pakistan’s Nobel prize winner Malala Yousafzai.
Newspaper front pages have been dominated by accolades to “Asma the fearless”, while social media has seen a tsunami of acclamations, with many questioning what Pakistan will do without her.
“Once you get over the shock and sadness, there is eventually a panic about how we will find our moral compass now. Rest in power @Asma_Jahangir,” tweeted Ahmer Naqvi, of Pakistani music platform Patari. Jahangir faced death threats, beatings and imprisonment to win landmark human rights cases while standing up to dictators. —