The latest news on this front comes from Democracy Digest

A Pakistani human rights activist who spoke out against the army has fled the country after months in hiding. Gulalai Ismail (above, far right) is now in the US, having eluded a country-wide hunt and a travel ban imposed by Pakistan’s authorities, the BBC reports:

The activist said she was forced to run as she feared for her life, telling AFP news agency: “If I had ended up in prison and tortured for many years, my voice would have been silenced.” Her father, Muhammad Ismail, told BBC Urdu that Ms Ismail had six cases filed against her in the Pakistani courts. And that she had decided her life was in serious danger.

“I never wanted to leave Pakistan,” she said in Washington. “I believe that I can better work towards democracy and civil supremacy and peace in Pakistan.”

The ordeal of Gulalai (above), a 32-year-old Pakistani women’s rights activist on the run, sheds light on the state of human rights in Pakistan, a troubled nation with a history of brutal repression. Ms. Ismail has campaigned aggressively for women’s rights, bringing attention to rapes, disappearances and other abuses that she and many others say have been committed by Pakistan’s security forces against their own people, The New York Times reports:

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