Shireen Mehrunnisa Mazari ( ur, ) is a Pakistani politician who served the Federal Minister for Human Rights, from 20 August 2018 to 10 April 2022. She is the chairperson of the Parliamentary Committee on Appointment of Chief Election Commissioner and Members of the

Election Commission of Pakistan The Election Commission of Pakistan ( ur, ; ECP) is an independent, autonomous, permanent and constitutionally established federal body responsible for organizing and conducting elections to the national parliament, provincial legislatures, l ...

. She has been a member of the

National Assembly of Pakistan The National Assembly ( ur, , translit=Aiwān-e-Zairīñ, , or ur, قومی اسمبلی, Romanization, romanized: ''Qaumi Assembly'') is the lower house, lower legislative house of the bicameralism, bicameral Parliament of Pakistan, which al ...

since August 2018, and serves as a

chief whip The Chief Whip is a political leader whose task is to enforce the whipping system, which aims to ensure that legislators who are members of a political party attend and vote on legislation as the party leadership prescribes. United Kingdom ...

for

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI; ur, , ) is a political party in Pakistan. It was founded in 1996 by Pakistani cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan, who served as the country's prime minister from 2018 to 2022. The PTI is one of the thre ...

. Previously, she was a member of the National Assembly from June 2013 to May 2018. Mazari studied at the

London School of Economics , mottoeng = To understand the causes of things , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £240.8 million (2021) , budget = £391.1 millio ...

and later received her PhD from

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

in political science. Mazari joined

Quaid-i-Azam University Quaid-i-Azam University Islamabad ( ur, ; commonly referred to as QAU), founded as University of Islamabad, is a ranked 1 public research university in Islamabad, Pakistan. Founded as the University of Islamabad in 1967, it was initially dedi ...

as an associate professor and went on to head the university's strategic studies department. In 2002, Mazari became the head of the government-funded

Institute of Strategic Studies The Institute of Strategic Studies, Islamabad (ISSI), () is a strategic studies think tank based in Islamabad, Pakistan established in 1973. It is funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Pakistan. Its most famous member is the nationalis ...

and remained until she was sacked in 2008. In 2009, Mazari became the editor of ''The Nation''.

Early life and education

Mazari, an ethnic Baloch, is a graduate of the

London School of Economics , mottoeng = To understand the causes of things , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £240.8 million (2021) , budget = £391.1 millio ...

. She received her PhD in political science from

Professional career

In 2008, Government of Pakistan removed Mazari from the post of Director General of

The Institute of Strategic Studies The Institute of Strategic Studies, Islamabad (ISSI), () is a strategic studies think tank based in Islamabad, Pakistan established in 1973. It is funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Pakistan. Its most famous member is the nationalist ...

where she was due to retire in 2009. In 2009, Mazari was appointed as the editor of ''

The Nation ''The Nation'' is an American liberal biweekly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper tha ...

''. She also hosted a weekly television show on the ''

Waqt News ''Nawaiwaqt'' ( ur, , ) is an Urdu daily newspaper in Pakistan which is currently owned by Majid Nizami Trust. It was launched on March 23, 1940, under the leadership of Hameed Nizami (3 Oct 1915-22 Feb 1962). Hameed Nizami was the founder of th ...

''. Mazari came under intensive criticism from the

Committee to Protect Journalists The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is an American independent non-profit, non-governmental organization, based in New York City, New York, with correspondents around the world. CPJ promotes press freedom and defends the rights of journa ...

after she publicly alleged an American journalist to be a

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian intelligence agency, foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gat ...

spy. She had been an associate professor at

and later became chairperson of the university's Department of Defense and Strategic Studies.

Personal life

Shireen is married to Tabish Aitbar Hazir. The couple has a daughter, Imaan Zainab Mazari Hazir and a son Sabeel Hazir.

Political career

Mazari joined the PTI in 2008 In 2009, she was Information Secretary and Spokesperson of PTI. In 2012, she resigned from PTI where she was the Central Vice President and in charge of Foreign Policy. citing "policy differences and its takeover by corrupt elements" after she was served a show cause notice by PTI for "making unfounded, incorrect, inaccurate and false statements in the media". She rejoined PTI in 2013. She was elected as the member of the National Assembly of Pakistan for the first time in

2013 Pakistani general election General elections were held in Pakistan on Saturday 11 May 2013 to elect the members of the 14th National Assembly and the four Provincial Assemblies. The three major parties were the Pakistan Muslim League (N) (PML-N) led by Nawaz Sharif, t ...

on the ticket of PTI on reserved seats for women from Punjab. She was the chief whip of PTI in the National Assembly of Pakistan. She was re-elected to the National Assembly as a candidate of PTI on a seat reserved for women from Punjab in the

2018 Pakistani general election General elections were held in Pakistan on Wednesday, 25 July 2018 to elect the members of 15th National Assembly and the four Provincial Assemblies. The three major parties Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) led by Imran Khan, the Pakistan Muslim ...

. On 18 August,

Imran Khan Imran Ahmed Khan Niazi ( ur}; born 5 October 1952) is a Pakistani politician and former Cricket captain who served as the 22nd Prime Minister of Pakistan from August 2018 to until April 2022, when he was ousted through a no-confidenc ...

formally announced his federal cabinet structure and Mazari was named as Minister for Human Rights. On 20 August 2018, she was sworn in as Federal Minister for Human Rights in the federal cabinet of Prime Minister Imran Khan. In January 2020, she strongly condemned an attack on Karak temple by a mob of 1,500 local Muslims led by a local Islamic cleric and the supporters of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam party. In May 2022, she was arrested, but released after Islamabad High court ordered her release and called the arrest unlawful.

Resignation

On April 10, 2022, because of the regime change of Imran Khan's government, She resigned from the

National Assembly In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the repre ...

on the orders of

. The newly elected Speaker accepted the resignations of eleven members on July 28, 2022, one of them was Shireen Mazari.

Controversies

In 2019, after a terrorist attack in London, she chose to criticize Pakistans' leading newspaper

Dawn Dawn is the time that marks the beginning of twilight before sunrise. It is recognized by the appearance of indirect sunlight being scattered in Earth's atmosphere, when the centre of the Sun's disc has reached 18° below the observer's horizo ...

for publicizing that the

terrorist Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...

had been a man of Pakistani origin, rather than deploring the attack itself or offering condolences. She accused Dawn to pursue an anti-Pakistani agenda. While mobs surrounded the offices of Dawn calling for the editor to be hanged, she left the defense of the

freedom of expression Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The right to freedom of expression has been recogni ...

in Pakistan to others, such as

Reporters without Borders Reporters Without Borders (RWB; french: Reporters sans frontières; RSF) is an international non-profit and non-governmental organization with the stated aim of safeguarding the right to freedom of information. It describes its advocacy as found ...

. On 21 November 2020, Mazari while citing an online article, wrote on

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

that French president " Macron asdoing to Muslims was what the Nazis did to the Jews – Muslim children will get ID numbers (other children won't) just as Jews were forced to wear the yellow star on their clothing for identification". French government denounced Mazari's tweet as "fake news and false accusation" and stated that "the proposed ID would be for all children in France". Bina Shah, a writer and

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

columnist, said "just like in Pakistan, where as soon as you register a child's birth, the child will get assigned a 13 digit number which is then their NIC number when they reach 18". Later, Mazari deleted her tweet and issued a clarification stating that the article on the basis of which she had written her tweet has been amended. The online article, which was quoted by Mazari, now includes a clarification stating that the new law will be applied to all children in France. Foreign Ministry of France thanked Mazari for deleting her tweet and accepted her clarification. Shireen Mazari has also been criticized for her silence on China's persecution of Uyghurs during a talkshow at

Al Jazeera Al Jazeera ( ar, الجزيرة, translit-std=DIN, translit=al-jazīrah, , "The Island") is a state-owned Arabic-language international radio and TV broadcaster of Qatar. It is based in Doha and operated by the media conglomerate Al Jazeera ...

. However, Mazari said that "there may be such cases in China and we have taken up those cases with the Chinese and that is how we deal with our allies."Pakistan has taken up issue of Uyghurs with China: Shireen Mazari
12 December 2019. Dialogue Pakistan.

Works

Books

* ''Pakistan's security and the nuclear option'', Institute of Policy Studies, 1995, 167 p. Co-edited with Tarik Jan et al. * ''The

Kargil conflict The Kargil War, also known as the Kargil conflict, was fought between India and Pakistan from May to July 1999 in the Kargil district of Jammu and Kashmir and elsewhere along the Line of Control (LoC). In India, the conflict is also referred ...

, 1999 : separating fact from fiction'', Institute of Policy Studies, 2003, 162 p.

Research papers

* ''Nuclear safety and terrorism : a case study of India'', Institute of Strategic Studies, 2001, 46 p. Co-written with Maria Sultan. * ''Pakistan's nuclear doctrine and approach to arms control'', Institute of South Asian Studies, 2005, 17 p. * ''Islam and the West' dialogue : what achievements? What new effective methods?'', ISIS Malaysia, 2008, 16 p.

References

External links

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