Irene Khan

No cause can justify the abuse of human rights.

In August 2001, Irene Khan became the first women, the first Asian and the first Muslim to head Amnesty International’s million person strong human rights movement.

She’s had a challenging first year on the job: the horrifying attacks against the U.S., the new “war on terrorism,” and increased violence against civilians in Israel and the Occupied Territories, Colombia and other countries.

Khan’s focus - like Amnesty International’s - has been to put people first. “Human rights violations are not committed against the ‘other side’ but against a mother, a sister, a brother, a son,” she says. “Our challenge is to [stand] in solidarity with the victims, to know their names, their faces, their identities, their stories.”

Born in Bangladesh, Khan has worked in many countries for the rights of refugees and displaced persons.

Since joining Amnesty, she has traveled the world to bear witness to the experiences of those whose basic rights have come under attack - and to voice an alternative vision to the new “war on terrorism.”

Lighting Human Rights Day candles with Afghan refugee children in Pakistan on December 10, 2001, Khan said that “The world does not need a war against ‘terrorism’, it needs a culture of peace based on human rights for all.”

Listening to the stories of injured Palestinian and Israeli civilians in the spring of 2002, she stressed that “There is no excuse for human rights abuse, whether in the name of security or in the name of liberation.”

Throughout her travels, Khan has pointed to governments - China, Egypt, Zimbabwe and others - that are using the “anti-terrorism” bandwagon to violently stifle political dissent. And each time her fundamental message has been clear and unequivocal: “No cause can justify the abuse of human rights.”