Irene Khan

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Irene Khan
Born 24 December 1956 (1956-12-24) (age 55)
Dhaka, Bangladesh
Nationality British
Ethnicity Bangladeshi
Education Law
Alma mater University of Manchester, Harvard Law School
Occupation Consulting editor
Employer University of Salford
Title Chancellor
Predecessor Professor Sir Martin Harris
Religion Islam
Children 1 daughter
Relatives Mahbub Ali Khan (uncle)

Irene Zubaida Khan (born 24 December 1956) is a Bangladeshi human rights activist. She was the seventh Secretary General of Amnesty International until her resignation on 31 December 2009.[1][2] She was appointed as a member of the Charity Commission of England and Wales on 1 January 2010 but resigned after a controversy over post-retirement payoffs from Amnesty International. Khan joined The Daily Star, a Bangladeshi newspaper, as consulting editor on 15 May 2010.[3] She is the Chancellor of the University of Salford.[4] On 17 November 2011 she has been elected new Director-General of the International Development Law Organization - IDLO, an intergovernmental organization based in Rome, Italy.

Contents

[edit] Early years

Khan grew up in a relatively wealthy family in Bangladesh. She was the star pupil at St Francis Xavier's Green Herald International School where she was the record holder at the school leaving examinations. The daughter of a non-practicing medical doctor Sikander Ali Khan, granddaughter of Cambridge graduate and barrister Ahmed Ali Khan and great granddaughter of an eminent doctor of Calcuuta who was the personal physician of Syed Hasan Imam. Her uncle Rear Admiral Mahbub Ali Khan was the chief of the Bangladesh Navy. Irene' great-great uncle Ghazanfar Ali Khan was the first Muslim Cambridge graduate from Sylhet. Irene's first cousin Zubaida Khan is married to Tarique Rahman the son of a former prime minister and a president of Bangladesh. During her upbringing, East Pakistan – now Bangladesh – was fighting for independence from Pakistan. Human rights abuses that occurred during the Bangladesh Liberation War in which Bangladesh achieved independence, helped shape teenage Khan's activist viewpoint. She left Bangladesh as a teenager for school in Northern Ireland.[5] Khan then went to England and studied law at the University of Manchester[4] and then, in the United States, at Harvard Law School[4] She specialized in public international law and human rights.[4] She is the Chancellor of the University of Salford.[4]

[edit] Human rights career

Khan helped to create the organisation Concern Universal in 1977, an international development and emergency relief organisation. She began her career as a human rights activist with the International Commission of Jurists in 1979.

Khan went to work at the United Nations in 1980. She spent 20 years at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). In 1995 she was appointed UNHCR Chief of Mission in India, becoming the youngest UNHCR country representative at that time.

During the Kosovo crisis in 1999, Khan led the UNHCR team in the Republic of Macedonia. This led to her being appointed as Deputy Director of International Protection later that year.

Khan is featured in a 2003 TV documentary titled "Human Rights", by French award-winning filmmaker Denis Delestrac. The film, shot in Colombia, Israel, Palestine and Pakistan, analyses how armed conflicts affect civilian communities and foster forced migration.

[edit] Amnesty International career

Khan at the World Economic Forum 2007

Khan joined Amnesty International in 2001 as its Secretary General.[4] In her first year of office, she reformed Amnesty's response to human rights crises and launched the campaign to close Guantanamo prison camp. In 2004 she initiated a global campaign to stop violence against women. In May 2009 Khan launched Amnesty's "Demand Dignity" campaign to fight human rights abuses that impoverish people and keep them poor.[4]

[edit] Controversy

In February 2011, newspaper stories[6][7][8] in the UK revealed that Khan had received a payment of UK £533,103 from Amnesty International following her resignation from the organisation on 31 December 2009,[1] a fact discovered in Amnesty's records for the 2009–2010 financial year. The sum paid to her was in excess of four times her annual salary of £132,490.[1] The deputy secretary general, Kate Gilmore – who also resigned in December 2009 – received an ex-gratia payment of £320,000.[1][9] Peter Pack, the chairman of Amnesty's international executive committee, said on 19 February 2011, "The payments to outgoing secretary general Irene Khan shown in the accounts of AI (Amnesty International) Ltd for the year ending March 31st 2010 include payments made as part of a confidential agreement between AI Ltd and Irene Khan."[9] and that "It is a term of this agreement that no further comment on it will be made by either party."[1] On 21 February Pack issued a further statement, in which he said that the payment was a "unique situation" that was "in the best interest of Amnesty’s work" and that there would be no repetition of it.[1] He stated that "the new secretary general, with the full support of the IEC, has initiated a process to review our employment policies and procedures to ensure that such a situation does not happen again."[1] Pack also stated that Ammesty was "fully committed to applying all the resources that we receive from our millions of supporters to the fight for human rights".[1] In a statement[10] released by Pack following the media coverage of the story, Pack described the decision to award the payment to Khan as the "least worst option".[11] Philip Davies, the Conservative MP for Shipley, decried the payment, telling the Daily Express, "I am sure people making donations to Amnesty, in the belief they are alleviating poverty, never dreamed they were subsidizing a fat cat payout. This will disillusion many benefactors."[9] On 14 March 2011, Irene Khan resigned as UK Charity Commissioner, a public office taken up by Khan in early 2010 after leaving Amnesty, citing lack of time due to overseas commitments. Some had questioned Khan's appointment to the board of the charity regulator in the aftermath of the pay-off scandal. Announcing Khan's resignation from the Charity Commission, Nick Hurd, Minister for Civil Society, said: "Charities have a critical role to play in the Big Society and the Charity Commission, as the independent regulator has the important job of supervising the sector and preserving public confidence in charities."[12]

[edit] Other humanitarian initiatives

In 2009 Khan was featured in the project "Soldiers of Peace", an anti-war film.[13][14]

[edit] Awards

Khan received a Ford Foundation Fellowship in 1979 and the Pilkington "Woman of the Year" Award 2002[2] as well as the Sydney Peace Prize 2006. In 2007 she received an honorary doctorate at the Ghent University.[15] She received honorary doctorates from Universities of London (SOAS), Manchester, St. Andrews, Salford and Stafford in UK, American University of Beirut (Lebanon), Ferris (Japan), and State University of New York (USA). In 2008 she was one of the two persons whose name was put forward for the election of the new Chancellor of The University of Manchester.[16] In July 2009 she was appointed as Chancellor of the University of Salford.[17] On June 29, 2010 she was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Edinburgh.

[edit] Publications

  • 2009: The Unheard Truth: Poverty and Human Rights (W.W. Norton & Co.) : ISBN 0393337006, translated in French, German, Finnish, Dutch, Italian, Korean, and special South Asia edition by Viva, New Delhi.

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Tania Mason, _ has_no_jurisdiction_over_board_members_payment_from_amnesty Charity Commission has 'no jurisdiction' over board member's payment from Amnesty, civilsociety.co.uk, 21 February 2011. Retrieved 21 February 2011.
  2. ^ a b Irene Khan - Biography Amnesty International[dead link]
  3. ^ Irene Khan - Daily Star The Daily Star
  4. ^ a b c d e f g "Amnesty International's Secretary General becomes the University of Salford's new Chancellor". University of Salford. http://www.salford.ac.uk/news/details/906/. Retrieved 2009-07-10. 
  5. ^ Irene Khan Fawcett Society.
  6. ^ "Amnesty’s pay-offs spark outrage". Sunday Times. 20 February 2011. http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/public/sitesearch.do?querystring=irene+khan&sectionId=1914&p=sto&bl=on&pf=all. 
  7. ^ -pay-offs-bosses.html "Amnesty’s secret £800,000 pay-offs to two bosses....which it doesn’t seem very keen to talk about". Daily Mail. 19 February 2011. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1358537/Revealed-Amnesty-Internationals-800-000 -pay-offs-bosses.html. 
  8. ^ "Letters". Sunday Times. 6 March 2011. http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/public/sitesearch.do?querystring=irene+khan&sectionId=1914&p=sto&bl=on&pf=all. 
  9. ^ a b c John Chapman, Amnesty boss gets secret £500,000 payout, express.co.uk, 19 February 2011. Retrieved 21 February 2011.
  10. ^ "A letter to all AI members and staff from the International Executive Committee", amnesty.org.uk. Retrieved 2 March 2011.
  11. ^ Niki May Young, "Paying off Khan was 'least-worst option' according to Amnesty's IEC chair", civilsociety.co.uk, 1 March 2011. Retrieved 2 March 2011.
  12. ^ "Civil Society". Irene Khan resigns from Charity Commission board. Civil Society. http://www.civilsociety.co.uk/governance/news/content/8607/irene_khan_resigns_charity_commission_board. 
  13. ^ "Irene Khan — The Cast — Soldiers of Peace". Soldiersofpeacemovie.com. http://www.soldiersofpeacemovie.com/about/the-cast/22/irene-khan/. Retrieved 2009-10-18. 
  14. ^ "Soldati di Pace (Soldiers of Peace)". Soldatidipace.blogspot.com. 2009-10-18. http://www.soldatidipace.blogspot.com/. Retrieved 2009-10-18. 
  15. ^ http://www.ugent.be/nl/univgent/publicaties/diesnatalis/2007
  16. ^ http://www.staffnet.manchester.ac.uk/medialibrary/election/biographical-summaries.pdf
  17. ^ http://www.salford.ac.uk/news/details/906

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Irene Khan
Non-profit organization positions
Preceded by
Pierre Sané		 Secretary-General of Amnesty International
2001–2009		 Succeeded by
Salil Shetty

Muhammad Yunus (1998) · Desmond Tutu (1999) · Xanana Gusmão (2000) · William Deane (2001) · Mary Robinson (2002) · Hanan Ashrawi (2003) · Arundhati Roy (2004) · Olara Otunnu (2005) · Irene Khan (2006) · Hans Blix (2007) · Patrick Dodson (2008) · John Pilger (2009) · Vandana Shiva (2010) · Noam Chomsky (2011)
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