Asma Jahangir: Pakistan's Bravest Jurist

Asma Jahangir launched her first legal battle when she was just 20 years old, without ever going to law school. It was 1972, and the Pakistani government of then-President Zulifkae Ali Bhutto had just detained Jahangir’s father, a member of the political opposition. Asma picked up a law textbook, filed a petition to the Supreme Court for his release, and, 10 years later, found out that she’d won. “I was really not a human rights activist,” recalls the now-famous lawyer. “I was my father’s daughter.”