Marvi Sirmed
Marvi Sirmed is a freelance journalist and human rights defender from Pakistan. She has spent more than 20 years working as a specialist in democratic governance and promoting liberal secular democracy, human rights and peace. She has also been involved in diplomatic initiatives between Pakistan and India and Pakistan and Afghanistan for nearly two decades. During her career, she has highlighted very sensitive issues, including Pakistan’s widely misused anti-blasphemy laws; violence meted out on transgender & LGBTQ+ communities; Ahmadi Muslims; the massacre of the Shia and Hazara communities; and state policies of covertly supporting extremist and terrorist organizations. She was awarded a National Human Rights Award by the President of Pakistan in 2010 in recognition of her services for human rights and democracy.
As a Logan fellow, she will write the stories of individuals, organizations and media houses in South Asia that have been/are putting up peaceful resistance against the oppression by states or non-state actors.