Outrage keeps human rights lawyer Hina Jilani fighting for justice

Hina Jilani is one of the world's most renowned human rights lawyers.

She co-founded and heads The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan and has played significant roles for the UN, including eight years as the Special Representative on Human Rights Defenders. During this time, she led several UN investigations around the globe, such as in Darfur.

Her passion for justice is the most fervent for the women of Pakistan. And despite attempts on her life, Jilani refuses to back down from her quest for a better world. 

"I do fear like normal people fear. But I have no other option," she told IDEAS producer Mary Lynk.

Lynk first spoke to Jilani when she was working on the CBC podcast The Kill List about the life of the dissident Karima Baloch who fought against the enforced disappearances of her tribal people by the State of Pakistan. 

Lynk again met with Jilani in person when she was in Canada visiting family.  

This is an excerpt from their conversation.

It's so lovely to meet you in person. Your resumé, all the things you've accomplished, I'm so honoured to be here with you today. 

Well, thank you so much. It's been a long time in this field. So many memories. 

Hina, you've been quoted as saying civil society is struggling and we are watching as if a cricket match is going on. 

I feel that we are being made to become irrelevant. That's what is dangerous for me because I think that civil society, especially in countries like mine, where there is a great need to balance the power of the state by a strong civil society voice, that may be disappearing.

You said in recent years, after decades working as a civil rights lawyer, you said that you felt absolutely overwhelmed — not defeated — but overwhelmed by the state of your country… Where do you see it going with all the things you're talking about, hoping for a more robust civil society? 

I'm just hoping that civil society will once again use its resilience to fight back.

And I think at the worst times, especially if you remember the time of [former President of Pakistan General Muhammad] Zia-ul-Haq, which was one of the worst martial laws that we've had, it was the resistance that gave us the energy to fight back. And I hope that people realize that this is an even more difficult time than we've seen before. And civil society will fight back and not become extremely frustrated and let apathy take over. 

That's really interesting because you mentioned General Zia, and that is when you became a lawyer under martial law, under his rule. So take me back to your childhood. You and your sister, the late Asma Jahangir, also a lawyer, were taught at an early age, not to turn your back on injustices. Tell me about that. 

You know, that was really my father. He was a politician, but more than a politician he was he was more of a human rights defender. And I think when he became a member of the parliament during a new constitution, it was not a martial law, but it was a military dictatorship. After one of the military-imposed constitutions came into force, he was the one who made a very inspirational speech in the parliament on fundamental freedoms and human rights. And after that, the new chapter on fundamental freedoms was added to that constitution. So he really believed in these things.

Tell me more about that speech. How old were you when he gave that speech? 

I must have been 10, 11 years old. But it's still one of the speeches that people do turn to again and again to refer to when this whole tradition of saying the right things in politics transformed itself into a human rights discourse.

And at that time, I was growing up in an environment in which freedom was really what we were all talking about all the time, because my father was in prison all the time while we were growing up as children, and my mother, of course, had a hard time raising four children. But that is what really taught me a few things. 

The first one was always do what is contrary to what the government wants to install as a narrative, knowing fully well what the consequences are. Because my father never said anything without knowing that this use of freedom of speech, of freedom of assembly can cause you trouble. 

Can cause you death. 

Cause you death, there were many assassination attempts on him.

Talk about the time at your house. There was a sniper on the building nearby to kill your father. What happened? 

This was in 1965. I must have been 12, 13 years old at that time. And my father was very busy in an election that was being contested between this military leader and the sister of the founder of Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah. And my father was, of course, on Ms. Jinnah's side. He was campaigning for her at that time.

And he had a journalist who had come to interview him and suddenly he heard that Ms. Jinnah wanted him to come to Karachi. So he took a plane to Karachi and the journalist and another politician who was staying in a house. They returned in the same car to our house. As they came out of the car over the wall in the next house, they were assassins who started shooting. And that poor journalist, his stature was like my father, they thought it was him. And he died. He was a young man. He had a two-year-old child. 

Were you there? 

We were there in the house. 

What do you remember? 

We remember these terrible gunshots. And then my older sister — she was the one who went out — discovered that these were people who had been very seriously injured. So she tried to administer some first aid, whatever she knew, she was hardly 15 years, 16 years old at that time.  

And then we found that this one man had died, the other was very seriously injured. Even the driver was injured. But because he was a brave man, he had the courage to pick up the injured person and take him to hospital immediately, even though he himself was injured. And then, of course, the family gathered and friends gathered and the political allies also came to the house. So it was a terrible time. And I remember for years when I was still very young if there was a loud bang, it would frighten me. 

But your father, because you're saying he said you have to accept what can happen. How do you deal with fear? Because you've had your own assassination attempts on you. How do you deal with fear? Like do you just say, maybe this is my last day, every day?

No, I don't. I don't. I'm not stupid. And I know that the threats are real and the risk is real when you're doing this kind of a job and you're in the field of human rights. But at the same time, I don't let that rule my life.

I'm not very courageous, let me confess. I do fear like all normal people fear, but I have no other option. And the fear that I have to live in an environment and not do something about it and let that environment even worsen around me. That fear is much greater than any other fear. 

What makes me go is not letting go of this feeling of outrage. If something that I see around me is not right, is not fair, is not just, I can't just turn away from it.

Even though now I'm going to be turning 70 next year, I hope that I still am not jaded by what I've seen in my life and can still feel that outrage. And I still do. 

*Q&A edited for clarity and length. This episode was produced by Mary Lynk.