Ibn Abdur Rehman


Ibn Abdur Rehman, also known as I.A. Rehman is a Pakistani peace and human rights advocate, and a veteran communist. A protégé of the great Urdu poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz, he became chief editor of the Pakistan Times newspaper in 1989. He is the founding chair of the Pakistan-India Peoples’ Forum for Peace and Democracy. He has also been a director of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan since 1990, and is a prominent human rights activist. Rehman has been influential for promoting peace in the Indo-Pakistani wars and conflicts and in Kashmir conflict as well as for other human rights issues in Pakistan.
In November 2007, on a visit to India, he told The Hindu "I've been working to defend people's human rights all my life. And, I will continue to do so."
In 2015, many human rights activists including I.A. Rehman urged the Pakistani government to 'criminalise child labour in hazardous environments'. According to Dawn, one activist doctor said, "I have seen cases where children have contracted tuberculosis because they worked in hazardous environments. Making children work such jobs should be criminalized."
Rehman grew up in both a "religious and secular" household, and his father and grandfather were landowners who belonged to Haryana in British India.

Awards and recognition