Early Life
Ansar Burney was a prominent student leader with the People’s Student Federation in his youth during the 1970s and was known to raise his voice for justice, human dignity and civil rights. His efforts and movement landed him in trouble with the military government of the time and in 1977, Ansar Burney, then aged 20, was arrested on charges of delivering speeches against martial law and in favour of democracy; and was sentenced to eight months rigorous imprisonment by the Martial Law Court.Upon release in 1978, the Martial Law Authorities once again arrested Ansar Burney and sentenced him to prison for 2 further months of detention and in 1979, Burney was again arrested for a third time and detained for a month.
During the periods of his detention in different prisons in Pakistan, Ansar Burney witnessed firsthand the miserable conditions of prisons and met countless prisoners whom were imprisoned without crime or charge; some in detention for over 40 years without ever appearing in court.
It was then upon his release and completion of his law degree that Ansar Burney set up the ‘Prisoners Aid Society’ and the ‘Bureau of Missing and Kidnapped Children’ in Karachi (Pakistan in 1980; and eventually formed the Ansar Burney Trust International with offices in Karachi, Islamabad, Peshawar, Mirpur, Quetta, Washington D.C. and London.
The Ansar Burney Trust is a non-governmental, non-political and non-profitable organisation which initially worked for the welfare of prisoners, reforms in prisons and mental asylums and to trace missing and kidnapped children; however then widened its scope to cover all areas of human rights and worked against human trafficking.
Read more about this topic: Ansar Burney
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“I looked at my daughters, and my boyhood picture, and appreciated the gift of parenthood, at that moment, more than any other gift I have ever been given. For what person, except one’s own children, would want so deeply and sincerely to have shared your childhood? Who else would think your insignificant and petty life so precious in the living, so rich in its expressiveness, that it would be worth partaking of what you were, to understand what you are?”
—Gerald Early (20th century)
“Subject the material world to the higher ends by understanding it in all its relations to daily life and action.”
—Ellen Henrietta Swallow Richards (1842–1911)