NEW YORK - Sherry Rehman, Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United States, and Shehrbano Taseer, daughter of slain Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer, have been named in a global list of 150 fearless women drawn up by Newsweek, the mass-circulation US magazine.

The list, featuring distinguished women from around the world, includes German Chancellor Angela Merkel, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatre, Saudi women rights activist Manal al-Sharif, Iran’s activist Faezeh Hashemi, Yemeni Nobel Peace Prize winner Tawakkol Karman, American television celebrity Oprah Winfrey and Hollywood star Angelina Jolie.
Newsweek said these women have made remarkable efforts for the social uplift of women and their empowerment.
About Ambassador Rehman, the magazine wrote that she had “spent her entire career pushing for human rights and free speech in of the world’s most conservative countries.” It added that while she worked with slain former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto to author bills tackling honour killings and domestic violence.  In addition, she braved death threats for trying to remove the death penalty in the controversial blasphemy law, even forced into a self-imposed house arrest. Newsweek said that Shehrbano Taseer had picked up the battle standard for a progressive and secular Pakistan after the murder of her father. She too, the magazine added, had been braving death threats, forging ahead unnerved with her mission to “eliminate the country’s strict blasphemy law, which are often invoked to execute religious minorities.”