Younus Shaikh
Mohammed Younus Shaikh (Punjabi, Urdu: محمد یونس شیخ, born 30 May 1952) is a Pakistani medical doctor, human rights activist and freethinker.
When he was a teacher at a medical college in Islamabad, Shaikh was an active member of the South Asia Peace Movement and of the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU). He took part in the Pakistan-India Forum for Peace and Democracy, and was a member of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. A free-thinker, he founded Enlightenment, an organization associated with the IHEU.
In October 2000, Pakistani authorities charged Shaikh with blasphemy. A judge ordered that he pay a fine of 100,000 rupees, and sentenced him to death by hanging. On appeal, on 20 November 2003, a court acquitted Shaikh, who fled Pakistan for Europe soon thereafter.
On his return to Pakistan, he worked at Aga Khan University Hospital, Karachi, practised as a general medical practiioner, then taught at Capital Medical College, G/9 Markaz Islamabad.
Shaikh studied Journalism and attained a diploma in Journalism from Islamabad; he was active in intellectual, literary and social circles and he regularly attended the meetings of the Halqa Arbab i Zoaq in Lahore and later in Rawalpindi and Islamabad. Shaikh attracted the attention of Islamic fundamentalists because as protest against the extremist Islamic Mullah and their atrocities, he gave up Islam, and as a member of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, he wrote letters to President Musharraf and different newspapers about Islamic attacks on peace-loving Ahmadis-a minority group, a former Muslim sect expelled from Islam, as well as he campaigned about the human rights of women, of Hindus, Christians and liberal, secular Muslims. He also took part in the Pakistan-India Forum for Peace and Democracy, and was a member of the South Asian Fraternity, South Asian Union. He also expressed disquiet and exposed the horrors of the Pakistan Army atrocities in Bengal in 1971. He founded Enlightenment, an organization associated with the International Humanist and Ethical Union, in 1990.
...
Wikipedia