News
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Shehrbano Taseer wins human rights award
New York: NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams is to host Human Rights First’s star-studded Human Rights Awards dinner today, honouring renowned Egyptian activist Basem Fathy and Pakistani journalist Shehrbano Taseer, as well as Michelle and Robert King, creators of CBS’s ‘The Good Wife’. Among the evening’s award presenters are The Good Wife’s Josh Charles and Academy Award-winning actor Philip Seymour Hoffman. The group will bestow its Human Rights Awards and the Integrity in Entertainment award on the honourees during its annual award dinner in New York City. The group will honour this year’s recipients, Shehrbano Taseer and Basem Fathy, during an October event in New York City. Human Rights First will honour Shehrbano Taseer, daughter of the assassinated Pakistani Governor Salmaan Taseer, for her courage in carrying out her father’s legacy of religious tolerance. Despite criticism and even death threats from extremist groups, Taseer, a journalist for Newsweek Pakistan, has worked unremittingly to shed light on the hundreds of victims of Pakistan’s blasphemy laws and to encourage her government to take necessary steps to promote religious tolerance. In the months since her father’s death, Shehrbano has continued to speak out publicly against discriminatory laws that target religious minorities and encourage religious extremism. She has published a series of op-ed pieces calling for change in Pakistan, and has openly criticised those who glorify her father’s murderer. She was instrumental in the United Nation Human Rights Council’s groundbreaking resolution in Geneva this March that seeks to address violence, discrimination, and incitement to religious hatred without the controversial notion of “defamation of religions”. Her courage has led some to characterize the young journalist as “one of the bravest women in today’s Pakistan”. pr
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk