Fatehyab Ali Khan 1936 - 2010 Fatehyab Ali Khan, advocate, constitutional expert, writer, political visionary and national leader, passed away on 26 September 2010. His entire career was a heroic struggle for the rights of the oppressed people of Pakistan, for democracy and fundamental freedoms, and above all for justice and the rule of law. He fought for these ideals both at the national political level and through the courts of law. Fatehyab Ali Khan's family hailed from Hyderabad Deccan and shifted to Pakistan after the Partition. He was educated in various schools in Shikarpur and Karachi. In the years immediately following the Partition, there were very few educational institutions to cater to the growing refugee population, At a very early age, Fatehyab agitated against the misuse of educational finds as also for scholarships and freeships for poor students. This brought him into conflict with the educational bureaucracy and he frequently had to change schools and colleges.A brilliant organizer and orator, he shot to fame when he was elected to the leadership of Islamia College Students Union in 1958. He was the first elected President of the Karachi University Students Union in 1960 and Chairman of the Inter-Collegiate Body (ICB), an umbrella organization of office bearers of students’ unions of all colleges. ‘ Fatehyab’s first clash with dictatorship came under Ayub Kai's martial law. When political parties were silent spectators, under his leadership, the students took to the streets and defied martial law. Fatchyab was then only 25 years old. He was arrested, subjected to severe torture, tried by a military court as Accused Number One, and convicted to hard labour for one year im 1961. He served out his prison term in Bahawalpur Central Jail. In 1962, he led the protest against the governments educational policies which spread throughout the country. He was externed from all parts of West Pakistan, being confined to Quetta during 1962-63. In the presidential elections of 1964, he threw iis full weight against Ayub Khan’s dictatorship and campaigned for Mohtarma Fatima Jinnah. Fatehyab was admitted to study at the University of Cambridge and for the Bar at the Middle Temple but was denied a passport by the government. He started hhis legal practice in Karachi in 1964 and worked for the supremacy of the rule of law from the platform of the Karachi Bar, Sindh High Court Bar and the West Pakistan Bar Council, Fatchyab Ali Khan belonged to that rare breed of Pakistani politicians who did not switch membership of political parties. Never a political opportunist, he joined the Pakistan Workers’ Party which later merged with the Pakistan Mazdoor Kissan Party, of which Fatehyab remained President until his death. He worked with democratic forces against unilateral amendments in the 1973 Constitution and for holding fresh elections in Pakistan in 1977.Fatehyab’s greatest contribution to democracy, supremacy of the 1973 Constitution and the rule of law was made during his struggle against Ziaul Haq's dictatorship. He used his intellectual and political acumen to fight against dictatorship through the superior courts. In a remarkable act of courage, after Ziaul Haq’s takeover, when many political parties were silent or rejoicing, he filed a constitutional petition in the Supreme Court of Pakistan, challenging the imposition of martial law. The prayer in this petition, R2 of 1977, was punishment of the martial law regime under Article 6 (sedition) of the 1973 Constitution He was a founding member of the Movement for Restoration of Democracy (MRD) and was one of the signatories of the MRD Declaration. One of the first victims of Ziaul Haq’s repression, he was arrested from Naudero on 4 April 1981 and imprisoned. In 1979, he was arrested by the NWEP police for holding meetings of peasants and workers against martial law in Charsadda, Mardan and Hashinagar. He was a fearless fighter for democracy and a brilliant organizer for MRD, spending long periods of time underground. The decade of the 1980s was a period of great distress and hardship for him and his family but he never compromised on his principles or bowed to political pressure. Under the MRD’s civil disobedience programme, Fatehyab courted arrest at Empress Market in Karachi on 18 August 1983. He was convicted for one year in 1983, being the only head of a political party to be tried and convicted by a military court. The trial was held in Karachi Central Prison. During this decade, he was in and out of prison, externed, interned and interrogated dozens of times. His uncompromising and bold stands signalled him out for harsh treatment and he was invariably given C class in prison. In December 1978, he made a contempt of court application in the Supreme Court of Pakistan under Article 204 of the 1973 Constitution, during the murder trial of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, against the Ministry of Information, PTV and Radio Pakistan challenging the telecast and broadcast of the programme “Zulm ki Dastan”. This programme was stopped, as a result of his petition.Fatehyab’s party became a member of the Pakistan Awami Ittehad and Grand Democratic Alliance. On account of his seniority, moderation and experience, his views and wisdom were widely sought. He was greatly distressed by the mutilation of the 1973 Constitution and from all platforms worked for its restoration in its original form without any amendments. He wrote extensively on the constitutional anomalies resulting from the distortion of the 1973 Constitution and also on issues in international politics, legal and representative systems, Kalabagh and water treaties. For many years, he was Chairman of The Pakistan Institute of International Affairs, which gave him an academic niche from which to study and reflect. He was also the prime and determined mover in saving the Tnstitute, a non-official organization, which had been illegally taken over by Ziaul Haq in 1980, and in ‘getting it returned to its members through the judgment of the Supreme Court of Paikistan in 1993 Never impressed by wealth and power, Fatehyab’s professional and political life was remarkable for its integrity and transparency as his personal life was marked by simplicity. He was a living encyclopedia of politics in Pakistan, a true believer in the rule of law and fundamental freedoms, especially the rights of women and minorities which he always backed and supported. Strongly opposed to sectarian and ethnic politics, he stood by the struggle of labour and the working journalists. Between 197 and 1987, he was arrested 12 times and externed from NWFP as late as 2004-5 when political oppression was supposed to be over. To the struggle and sacrifices of people like Fatehyab Ali Khan we owe the democratic values, tolerance and decency in public and professional life that exist in Pakistan today.