Nazir Afzal (born 1962) is a senior British lawyer who campaigns on issues surrounding child sexual exploitation and violence against women. He is a practicing Muslim, an immigrant son, and a feminist who speaks for women's rights and opposes forced marriage, female genital mutilation and honor killing. He is expert in deradicalisation.
Afazal spent most of his career at Crown Prosecution Service, boarding the Chief Prosecutor for Northwest England from 2011 to 2015, when he left the CPS. He is the first Muslim to be appointed as Chief Prosecutor and is the most senior Muslim attorney in the organization. He recently served as chief executive of the Police Association and the Commissioner of Crime, a position he resigned when the organization tried to stop him from speaking.
Early life and background
Nazir Afzal was born in Birmingham, his parents have just emigrated from Pakistan. His father and his father's family worked for generations in catering for the British Army, and one of his relatives was killed by the IRA at the top of The Troubles in Northern Ireland.
He grew up with seven siblings in two-up two-downs at Small Heath, Birmingham. He was harassed and persecuted racially, and the people around him did not see the point of reporting this to the police.
Afzal has a law degree from the University of Birmingham.
Video Nazir Afzal
Careers
Afzal worked as a lawyer in Birmingham from 1988 to 1991. In London, he became a crown prosecutor in 1991 and assistant chief prosecutor in 2001. In 2011, he was appointed chief prosecutor of the North West region covering Greater Manchester, Cumbria and Lancashire. At that point in his career, he explained that "prosecutors are public figures and should be out there involved with people, explaining themselves through the media." As one of the 13 chiefs of crown prosecutors covering England and Wales, he is responsible for over 100,000 prosecutions per year and manages 800 lawyers and paralegals.
CPS
The first time the Afzal case reached national news was in August 1992, when the culprits were two supermarket employees who, after an alcoholic trip to the beach, had sex on an overcrowded train back to London, and then lit a cigarette in a non-smoking train. Afzal successfully sued them for indecent acts and smoking where not allowed to do so. The case is quoted by an American academic in an attempt to understand the culture of British wisdom.
Afzal's prosecution included Princess Diana's stalker in 1996. At her promotion and moving to Manchester in 2011, she was immediately confronted with several high-profile cases. One involves a man who was killed during an aggravated burglary, in which Afzal decides that the householder acts with reasonable self-defense. Afzal's team was responsible for the quick prosecution of the summer looters, the judicial response described by an academic as "shocked and amazed". The incidence of Stepping Hill Hospital poisoning occurred in the fall, and 2011 was closed with unwarranted killings of a student from India.
Violence, control, and gender
Afzal is well known for dealing with cases involving violence against women and sexual exploitation of children. Until 2004, he was unaware of any forced marriage and crime of honor taking place in England, but he was approached by a group of women with convincing testimony. They asked him to use his position to investigate him, so he held a conference on these issues and created a national database, which cataloged dozens of examples of potential crimes. 2005 saw the honor killing of Samaira Nazir; as area director for CPS, Afzal was responsible for the prosecution of his relatives, and described the belief that caused his killing as "tragic and outdated". He thought that such a traditional attitude would die with older immigrant generations, but in 2008, as he led the CPS on honor-based violence, he realized that young men hold the same beliefs about honor and purity, and that education is needed for start with elementary school kids to challenge this. "I have spoken with many Muslim women and I can tell you that their greatest fear is not Islamophobia or being attacked by a racist or arrested on suspicion of terrorism that comes from within their own family."
One of his first decisions to become chief prosecutor of the crown was to start a prosecution in the case of the Rochdale sex trade gang, canceling the previous decision by the CPS. He suggested that "white professionals who are too sensitive to political correctness and fear of appearing racist may have contributed to stalled justice". He said, "I feel there is a leadership deficit in some parts of the Muslim community, they can be more challenging to certain behaviors." He attributes the attack to "bad guys", saying that the driver is "male power". Profile of New York Times says:
Being a man, a practicing Muslim and a son of immigrants from a conservative tribal belt in northwestern Pakistan may make Mr. Afzal as a feminist is not possible in the eyes of some people. But that's how he describes himself - and his sex, he says, is by far his greatest asset. "Women have been talking about this issue for a long time," he said. "I am not the first person to do this war in this country, I am only the first person, and it makes it much easier." I come from these communities, I understand their patriarchy, I can challenge them, "he continued. "And because I'm a man, men in the community are more likely to listen to me."
Afzal's work against the gang groom has led to criticism from "members of the Asian community" and from the far right. Regarding the right-wing campaign to deport Afzal, he insisted "I was born in Birmingham They could deport me to Birmingham if they wanted," and said "I think if you get it from both sides, you may get something right."
He uses his position to emphasize that perpetrators of violence are found in all communities, and that most pedophiles in Britain are white. In May 2013, he was responsible for the prosecution of a disgraced former BBC Stuart Hall presenter. He promised to distract the CPS to impose marriage in the Traveler's community, which he claims is rife. Afzal put forward the theory, also proposed by Rochdale, MP Simon Danczuk, that an explanation for the profile of city actors is the prevalence of Pakistani people in the night economy, ie as taxi drivers and workers in take-off shops.
In March 2015 it was reported that Afzal left the CPS. A CPS spokesman said, "Nazir Afzal abandoned the service as part of an ongoing drive for efficiency" and that "there is no irregularity on the part of Afzal".
After CPS
As soon as he leaves the CPS, Afzal starts to speak more broadly, and finds a large audience for his message, that violence against women infects all communities, that authorities still do not want to trust the victims, and that there is a leadership deficit in the British Muslim community. "After prosecuting perpetrators from more than 60 countries and [handled] victims from more than 50 countries, I know there is no community where women and girls are safe.This is the power and strength that sadly infect every community and therefore our responsibility must begin by listening to victims and survivors. "
He draws parallels between the way gangs nurture children for sexual exploitation and the way Islamists lure young people into radicalization.
Afzal became chief executive of the Police and Crime Commissioners Association in 2016. He resigned from this post, limiting his political expression, after the bombing of Manchester Arena in May 2017 to express his views on the top BBC television program Question Time .
He is an Honorary Lecturer in law at the University of Manchester and Pro-Chancellor at Brunel University, London. He is also involved in capacity building in Somalia.
In 2017 he joined the Independent Press Standards Organization Complaint Committee as his first non-white member. In January 2018 he was appointed, along with Yasmin Khan of the Halo Project, as an adviser to the Welsh government on issues surrounding violence against women. He "has promised to make Wales one of the safest places in Europe to become a woman." He often speaks and writes about how much depends on the underappreciation of women's leadership in small charitable activities, working to combat gender-based issues and extremism in their own communities.
She has agreed to take up the position as Chairman of the Board of Companies of Hopwood Hall College in September 2018. To fulfill this role, she will resign as Pro-Vice-Chancellor of West London University.
Maps Nazir Afzal
Representation in popular culture
When he became director of the Crown Prosecution Service for London West, the procedural TV police Legal & amp; Order: UK uses him "for guides on plot flow and realism" and designs sets to mimic his office.
The three-part BBC "Three Girls" drama, based on Rochdale's scandal, was broadcast on 16th and 18th May 2017 and featured actor Ace Bhatti who played Afzal.
Appreciation
Afzal was appointed as the British Royal Order Officer of the New Year 2005. The Manchester Evening News reported that Afzal has "received the CPS Public Servant of the Year award, the UK Government Justice Award and the Daily Mirror 'People's Award'... Law Society/Bar Council Mentoring award and was selected for Asian Power 100 along with a list of Muslim Power 100. "
He was a student at Central Lancashire University in 2013 for "raising public awareness about domestic violence, forced marriage, and honor-based crimes". He received an honorary doctorate in Law from the University of Birmingham in 2014.
In January 2013, Afzal was awarded the Law Service award at the British Muslim Prize. He was named the Legal Personality of the Year by the Society of Asian Lawyers.
Personal life
Nazir Afrzal is a practicing Muslim.
She's married three times. He describes this humorously as "a multifaith engagement": "First for an Irish Catholic, then to Hindu India and then to English Sikhs." She has one daughter and three sons.
References
Source of the article : Wikipedia
0 Comments