Salma Sobhan | |
---|---|
Native name | সালমা সোবহান |
Born |
Salma Rasheeda Akhtar Banu August 11, 1937 London, United Kingdom |
Died | December 30, 2003 Gulshan, Dhaka, Bangladesh |
(aged 66)
Nationality | Bangladeshi |
Alma mater | University of Dhaka |
Spouse(s) | Rehman Sobhan (m. 1962) |
Parent(s) |
Mohammed Ikramullah (father) Shaista Suhrawardy Ikramullah (mother) |
Relatives |
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Salma Sobhan, (née Salma Rasheda Akhtar Banu; August 11, 1937 – December 30, 2003), was a Bangladeshi lawyer, academic and human rights activist. She became the first woman barrister in Pakistan in 1959. A member of the law faculty of the University of Dhaka, she was a co-founder of Ain-O-Salish Kendra (ASK), a national human rights .
Sobhan was born in London in 1937. Her father, Mohammed Ikramullah, was the first foreign secretary of Pakistan. Her mother, Begum Shaista Suhrawardy Ikramullah, was one of the first two women members of Pakistan's Constituent Assembly, and later served as Pakistan's delegate to the UN and Ambassador to Morocco. Her mother was a member of the Suhrawardy family of Calcutta. On her mother's side, Sobhan was a niece of Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy, premier of Bengal and Prime Minister of Pakistan, and on her father's side she was a niece of Muhammad Hidayatullah, Vice President and Chief Justice of India. She married Rehman Sobhan, an economist, in 1962. They had three sons; their eldest son Taimur died in an accident at the age of 18 in 1981. Their elder son Babar works for UNDP and their younger son Zafar Sobhan is the editor-in-chief of the Bangladeshi English daily, the Dhaka Tribune. Sobhan's sister is Princess Sarvath of Jordan. She had a brother named Enam and another sister named Naz.