Sima Samar

chairperson, Afghan Human Rights Commission

Sima Samar is chairperson of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) and a United Nations special reporter on human rights conditions in Sudan. She obtained her degree in medicine in 1982 from Kabul University. Samar publicly refuses to accept that women must be kept in purdah (secluded from the public) and speaks out against the wearing of the burqa (head-to-foot wrap), which was enforced first by the fundamentalist Mujahideen and then by the Taliban.