NEW YORK - Human Rights Watch regrets to announce the departure of its Pakistan director Ali Dayan Hasan, after 11 years with the organisation.
Hasan joined Human Rights Watch in 2003. Over the past decade, he has been a pioneering figure in the organization’s internationalization efforts, providing inspiration to replicate the process more broadly across the international human rights movement.
With his background as a journalist, Hasan has shown what a gifted writer, tireless advocate, and constant media presence can accomplish in the most challenging of circumstances. In the face of public threats and at risk to himself, Hasan has been a powerful and relentless voice against abuses by government authorities and militant groups, and against complicity in such abuses by US and British authorities.
Hasan’s exemplary body of work – including on abuses in Balochistan, in support of the rights of Pakistan’s Muslim and non-Muslim religious minorities, and in defense of media freedoms – speaks for itself. The power of Hasan’s message struck at powerful rights abusers, and generated a huge media and Twitter following, another area in which he has been a pioneer for Human Rights Watch.
“Ali Hasan has been a constant and courageous defender of human rights in Pakistan over the past decade with Human Rights Watch,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “We will miss him greatly as he embarks on the next chapters of his professional life.”