A Human Rights Champion, Cheerfully Defiant

LAHORE, Pakistan, Nov. 9 -- Female prison guards sit in Asma Jahangir's art-filled living room, watching as she sips tea, smokes cigarettes and talks about how proud she is to be Pakistani.

Jahangir, a lawyer and head of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, was placed under house arrest last Saturday, and since then the government has turned her two-story family villa into a jail. More than 20 prison guards, some with submachine guns, are posted in her garden, and plainclothes officers in oversize suits peer through her windows.

Her country is now in a state of turmoil, following President Pervez Musharraf's declaration of emergency rule, which has included the firing of Supreme Court justices and the detention of hundreds of opposition leaders, lawyers and human rights activists.

But Jahangir remains defiant and upbeat, waving to neighbors and continuing to work on position papers on how to bring the rule of law, an independent judiciary and stability to Pakistan.

Life under house arrest has been "just lovely, and it hasn't hurt me," Jahangir, 55 and a mother of three, said Friday in an interview at her home. "I am so proud of Pakistanis and specifically of our lawyers for speaking out and getting their heads bashed in for a better Pakistan."

"We are so resilient as a people," she said. "I have so much respect for their dignity and courage. I hope the world sees this side of Pakistan, one where professionals want a democracy. The spirit of our intelligentsia cannot be broken."

The government has filed terrorism charges against Jahangir and ordered her to stay confined to her house for 90 days. She can no longer go to her office next door or even sit in her garden.

But her popularity has only grown, and news media in Pakistan and abroad are calling her South Asia's version of Burmese human rights icon Aung San Suu Kyi. Pakistanis living abroad have also sent her e-mails expressing their support, she said.

"When you think of human rights in Pakistan, you think of Asma Jahangir," said Maria Hasan, a recent graduate of the Lahore University of Management Sciences, the scene of demonstrations against the emergency rule. "She's our national hero. She's very daring, and we, especially women, really admire her for that."

After intense pressure from U.S. diplomats, 70 civil society leaders, including professors, poets and doctors, were released from jail or house arrest after their detention Sunday for attending a Human Rights Commission meeting.

But Jahangir has not been allowed to leave her home.

"There is a limit to people's patience with brute force," she said. "I do worry about . . . blood being spilled. I don't want to see that in my country."