Shireen Mehrunnisa Mazari is a former Pakistani politician who served as Federal Minister for Human Rights from August 20, 2018, to April 10, 2022. She has been a member of Pakistan’s National Assembly since August 2018 and formerly served in the National Assembly from June 2013 to May 2018.
Education
Mazari obtained her PhD in political science from Columbia University after studying at the London School of Economics.
Career
Mazari was removed from her position as Director General of The Institute of Strategic Studies in 2008, where she was set to retire in 2009.
Mazari was appointed editor of The Nation in 2009. Additionally, she hosted a weekly television show on Waqt News. Mazari received harsh condemnation from the Committee to Protect Journalists after openly accusing an American journalist of being a CIA agent.
She was an associate professor at the Quaid-e-Azam University before becoming chairperson of the Department of Defence and Strategic Studies.
Political Career
Mazari became a member of the PTI in 2008. She became PTI’s Information Secretary and Spokesperson in 2009.
She resigned from PTI, where she was Central Vice President and in charge of Foreign Policy, in 2012 claiming “political differences and its takeover by corrupt elements, after PTI served her with a show cause notice for making unfounded, incorrect, inaccurate, and false statements in the media.
She returned to PTI in 2013.
In the 2013 Pakistani general election, she was elected to the Pakistan National Assembly for the first time on the PTI ticket on reserved seats for women from Punjab.
She was the PTI’s chief whip in Pakistan’s National Assembly.
In the 2018 Pakistani general election, she was re-elected to the National Assembly as a PTI candidate on a seat designated for women from Punjab.
Imran Khan finally revealed his federal cabinet composition on August 18, and Mazari was nominated Minister for Human Rights. She was sworn in as Federal Minister for Human Rights in Prime Minister Imran Khan’s federal cabinet on August 20, 2018.
She publicly criticised an attack on Karak temple by a crowd of 1,500 local Muslims led by a local Islamic cleric and members of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam party in January 2020.
Arrest
She was detained in May 2022, but she was released after the Islamabad High Court ordered her release and declared the arrest illegal.
Resignation
She resigned from the National Assembly under Imran Khan’s orders on April 10, 2022, as a result of the Vote of No Confidence VONC. On July 28, 2022, the newly elected Speaker accepted the resignations of eleven MPs, one of whom was Shireen Mazari. Following the 09/05 vandalism of Army sites, the beneficiaries of regime change arrested large numbers of PTI members and leadership. Shireen Mazari declared her resignation from active politics after 5 straight arrests and bail. Shireen Mazari resigned from the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party and formally declared her retirement from active politics on May 23, 2023, ostensibly under duress.
Controversies
After a terrorist attack in London in 2019, she opted to criticise Pakistan’s major daily Dawn for revealing that the attacker was of Pakistani ancestry, rather than condemning the attack or offering condolences. Dawn was accused of pursuing an anti-Pakistani agenda. While protestors stormed Dawn’s offices, shouting for the editor’s execution, she left the defence of freedom of expression in Pakistan to others, such as Reporters Without Borders.
Mazari tweeted on November 21, 2020, citing an online article, that “Macron [was] doing to Muslims what the Nazis did to the Jews – Muslim children will get ID numbers (other children will not), just as Jews were forced to wear the yellow star on their clothing for identification.” Mazari’s tweet was called “fake news and false accusation” by the French government, which noted that “the proposed ID would be for all children in France.” According to Bina Shah, a writer and New York Times columnist, “just like in Pakistan, where as soon as you register a child’s birth, the child will be assigned a 13-digit number, which will then be their NIC number when they reach the age of 18.” Mazari later removed her tweet and issued a clarification, noting that the article on which she based her remark had been altered. Mazari’s mentioned online article now contains a clarification noting that the new rule would apply to all children in France. The French Foreign Ministry thanked Mazari for deleting her post and accepted her explanation.
Books
- Pakistan’s Security and the Nuclear Option, Institute of Policy Studies, 167 pages, 1995. Tarik Jan et al. co-edited this volume.
- The Kargil battle, 1999: distinguishing fact from myth, Institute of Policy Studies, 2003, 162 pp.
Research Articles
- Nuclear security and terrorism: an Indian case study, Institute of Strategic Studies, 2001, 46 p. Written in collaboration with Maria Sultan.
- Pakistan’s nuclear doctrine and arms control approach, Institute of South Asian Studies, 2005, 17 p.
- What progress has been made in the discourse between Islam and the West? What are the most effective new methods?, ISIS Malaysia, 2008, 16 p.
Personal Life
Shireen is married to Tabish Aitbar Hazir. The couple has a daughter, Imaan Zainab Mazari Hazir, and a son, Sabeel Hazir.