Remembering sabeen: ‘Rights being curtailed in Pakistan’

The Cambridge Pakistan Society on Saturday remembered rights activist and T2F founder Sabeen Mehmud, who was gunned down in Karachi on April 24 this year.  “Students met in the university to express concern over excessive curbs on freedom of expression, intimidation, and violence, as reflected in the murder of Sabeen Mehmud,” said a press release. Her murder is a sign of worsening times in Pakistan, it said further. “The right to speak, and to live to see another day, is being curtailed by both the state and militants. Sometimes, free speech is curtailed through regulation: a cyber crimes bill that criminalises basic rights may be passed soon, and the blasphemy law threatens minorities,” the statement added. The students remembered Mehmud’s courage in the face of intimidation and expressed solidarity with her commitment to give a voice to the voiceless.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 10^th, 2015.