Ammar Rashid (Urdu: عمار رشید; born August 16, 1986) is a Pakistani researcher, academic, political worker and organizer of the left-wing party Awami Workers Party. He has written many columns for Daily Times (Pakistan) and Dawn News. He has taught as faculty of Centre of excellence for Gender Studies in Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan and Pakistan Institute of Development Economics. He ran for the National Assembly seat NA-53 in the Islamabad capital territory for 2018 Pakistani general election. He is senior researcher at Heartfile.
Early life and education
Rashid got his early education from schools in Rawalpindi. He did BSc (Hons) in Economics and Social Sciences in 2008 from Lahore University of Management Sciences and a master's degree in development studies in 2012, from Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, UK. In LUMS, he was student of Aasim Sajjad Akhtar.
Career
Rashid, as a professional has been involved in teaching and research work on areas ranging from health reform to public education, gender and development, public policy, political economy, tax reform, sub-national governance etc. His research interests include political theory and collective action. He also taught at Centre of excellence for Gender Studies department at Quaid-i-Azam University and at the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE), Islamabad. He worked as programme officer of Social Sector in National Disaster Management Authority (Pakistan). He is senior researcher at Heartfile. He also worked with Federal Board of Revenue and Alif Ailaan.
Political beginning
Ideology
Rashid follows the political ideology of socialism.
The Emergency Times
Rashid's political struggle started in 2007, when he was a student in LUMS, during Lawyers' Movement, initiated by lawyers of Pakistan against the military dictatorship of Pervez Musharraf. On November 7, 2007, he along with 1,000 students of his university, gathered to protest the emergency rule imposed by Musharraf's televised emergency announcement on November 3, 2007. After his teacher's (Aasim Sajjad Akhtar) arrest, he along with other students was also got arrested during the protest.
Major Pakistani news networks were not allowed to cover the student protest at LUMS, so Rashid took the initiative to start a newsletter named as “The Emergency Times” (November, 2007 - June, 2008) to narrate the protests’ details, to help students speak about democracy and organize against emergency rule. The newsletter described itself as “an independent Pakistani student information initiative providing regular updates, commentary, and analysis on Pakistan’s evolving political scenario.”
Politics
Awami Workers Party
Rashid is a senior and leading member of the Awami Workers Party (AWP) since the party was founded in 2012. He served as general secretary and information secretary AWP Rawalpindi-Islamabad in 2014–2015.
As political worker of AWP, Rashid has been involved in struggle for the right to affordable housing and shelter in Islamabad in 2015. He organized legal and political resistance to the inhumane and illegal evictions of people from Katchi Abadi (informal settlements) driven by Capital Development Authority (CDA).
While working with All Pakistan Katchi Abadi Alliance, Rashid talked about the flaws in system about rights to housing by people from informal settlements. He said, “Under the Urban Shelter Program the CDA legalized a few slums and left the rest out in the lurch, because the national policy dictated that any slums setup after March 1985 were illegal. We have in our possession voter lists consisting of thousands of people living in the I-11 and other katchi abadis as far back as the 1985 General Election.”
On July 30, 2015, the Capital Development Authority (CDA) along with police, local administration and rangers, demolished dwellings of ‘Katchi Abadi’ (informal settlements) in sector I-11/1, Islamabad destroying dozens of houses built since last 30 years.
On August 2, 2015, to stop these forceful evictions and fight for solution of this urban housing crisis in informal settlements of I-11/1, Rashid along with Aasim Sajjad Akhtar and residents from Kachi Abadi, filed a petition in the Supreme Court for the case on the right to housing.