LCHR Mourns Death of Salma Sobhan

NEW YORK - The Lawyers Committee for Human Rights mourns the death of leading Bangladeshi human rights activist, Salma Sobhan, who died of a heart attack, aged 66, on December 29, 2003, at her home in Gulshan, Dhaka. The Lawyers Committee for Human Rights honored Salma Sobhan with its 2001 Human Rights Award in recognition of her pioneering work in the fields of human rights and social justice.

“The international human rights movement has lost a great champion,” said Michael Posner, Executive Director of the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights. “Salma’s passion and energy was an inspiration to us all, and we will always be grateful for the opportunities we had to work together for the cause of human rights.”

Salma was the first woman lawyer in what was then East Pakistan and a leading advocate and authority on women’s rights in South Asia. After teaching law at the Dhaka University Law Faculty from 1962 to 1981, she went on to co-found the human rights organization Ain-O-Salish Kendra (ASK) Law and Mediation Centre in 1986 where she remained its first executive director until her 2001 retirement. She also helped to establish Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust (BLAST) and Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC), in addition to serving as a board member of several human rights and social justice organizations.

Salma was a tireless campaigner against domestic violence. “We have to change this perception that gender-based violence is a woman’s issue,” Sobhan used to say. ASK was founded with the goal of building a democratic society in Bangladesh by promoting human rights for those who are most susceptible to discrimination and repression—the disenfranchised poor, especially women and children. To do this, ASK provides legal aid to women and families on a range of issues and also helps women have a voice in political decision making.

During her acceptance speech at the 2001 Lawyers Committee for Human Rights Award Dinner, Salma Sobhan gave her view for the future of the human rights movement when she said that “the truth is, of course, that no battle for human rights and social justice is ever really over….the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. It’s particularly true when you are threatened, when your back is to the wall. Fear is the worst tyrant. Even the most liberal and sophisticated of us can yield to the impulses of fear, but we always regret it.”

The Lawyers Committee extends its sympathy to Salma Sobhan’s husband, renowned economist Professor Rehman Sobhan and their family, and to all her colleagues and friends in Bangladesh and throughout the world.