St Thomas (USVI)

Asma Jahangir's talk in Berkeley

From the much needed reforms in the school curriculum in Pakistan to the plight of the minorities under the specter of the Blasphemy law, from the misguided views of the Pakistani establishment to the US support of dictators around the world, Pakistan’s most prominent human rights lawyer Asma Jahangir covered a vast array of topics in her provocative speech given at the Bancroft Hotel in Berkeley.  Around 300 people attended the event organized by the Center for South Asia studies, UC Berkeley.

Asma Jahangir at Berkeley

The space for liberal voices is definitely shrinking in Pakistan.  In whatever narrow space remains for progressive views, Asma Jahangir’s voice is one of the loud ones.  Pakistan’s leading human rights advocate Asma Jahangir will be speaking tomorrow at the Bancroft Hotel in Berkeley on ‘Democratic Transitions in Pakistan and its Impact on Human Rights.’  The event sponsored by the Center for South Asia Studies, the Berkeley Pakistan Initiative, the Clausen Center for International Business and Policy at U.C. Berkeley Haas School of Business, and the Pakistani Students Association at Cal is being funded through money provided by the progeny of Late Mahomedali Habib, a Karachi philanthropist and the patriarch of the Habib family.

More information is available here:

http://events.berkeley.edu/index.php/calendar/sn/sseas.html?event_ID=68244&date=2013-10-08

St Thomas (USVI)

Tourist-fed iguanas, St Thomas (USVI)