Irene Khan
Irene Zubaida Khan (born 24 December 1956) is a Bangladeshi lawyer appointed as of August 2020 to be the United Nations Special Rapporteur for freedom of expression and opinion, the first woman appointed to this mandate.[1] She previously served as the seventh Secretary General of Amnesty International (from 2001 to 2009). In 2011, she was elected Director-General of the International Development Law Organization (IDLO) in Rome, an intergovernmental organization that works to promote the rule of law, and sustainable development. She was a consulting editor of The Daily Star in Bangladesh from 2010 to 2011.[2]
Irene Khan
Early life[edit]
Khan was born on 24 December 1956 in Dhaka, East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), though her ancestral home is in Birahimpur, Sylhet. She is the daughter of Sikander Ali Khan, a Bengali Muslim medical doctor; granddaughter of Ahmed Ali Khan, a Cambridge University mathematics graduate and barrister; and great-granddaughter of Assadar Ali Khan, the personal physician of Syed Hasan Imam. Her great-great-grandfather, Abid Khan, was the descendant of an Afghan migrant to Bengal.[3] Her uncle, Rear Admiral Mahbub Ali Khan, was the chief of the Bangladesh Navy. She was the star pupil at St Francis Xavier's Green Herald International School, 1964-1972 where she was the record holder at the school-leaving examinations.
During her childhood, East Pakistan became the independent nation of Bangladesh in 1971 following the Bangladesh Liberation War. The genocide that occurred during the war helped shape the teenage Khan's activist viewpoint. She left Bangladesh as a teenager for St. Louis Grammar school in Kikeel, Northern Ireland 1973–1975.[4]
Khan went to England, where she studied law at the University of Manchester and then, in the United States, at Harvard Law School. She specialized in public international law and human rights.[5]
Career[edit]
Human rights[edit]
Khan helped to create the organisation Concern Universal in 1977, an international development and emergency relief organisation. She began her career as a human rights activist with the International Commission of Jurists in 1979.
Khan went to work at the United Nations in 1980. She spent 20 years at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). In 1995 she was appointed UNHCR India's Chief of Mission, becoming the youngest UNHCR country representative at that time. After less than one year in New Delhi the Indian government requested that she be removed from that position. During the Kosovo crisis in 1999, Khan led the UNHCR team in the Republic of Macedonia for three months. This led to her being appointed as Deputy Director of International Protection later that year.
In August 2020, the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights appointed Khan to the position of Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression and opinion.[1]
Irene Khan is currently the Chair of the Supervisory Board of BRAC International. [6]
On January 23, 2024, Khan, in her 10-day visit, met with National Privacy Commission Chair John Henry D. Naga to examine the state of rights to freedom of opinion and expression in the country. The Presidential Task Force on Media Security per Atty. Hue Jyro U. Go, Chief of Staff, organized Khan's visit.[7][8]
Recognition[edit]
In media[edit]
Khan is featured in a 2003 TV documentary titled Human Rights, by the French filmmaker Denis Delestrac. The film, shot in Colombia, Israel, Palestine and Pakistan, analyses how armed conflicts affect civilian communities and foster forced migration. In 2009 Khan was featured in Soldiers of Peace, an anti-war film.[12][13]