Coordinates | 28°36′36″N77°13′48″N |
---|---|
Name | Sajjad Karim |
Honorific-suffix | MEP |
Birth date | July 11, 1970 |
Birth place | Blackburn, Lancashire, UK |
Ethnicity | British Pakistani |
Parliament | European |
Constituency mp | North West England |
Majority | 423,174 |
Term start | 13 June 2004 |
Party | Conservative Party (until 1989) Liberal Democrats (1989-2007) Conservative Party (from 2007) |
Website | sajjadkarim.eu |
Karim was the first British Muslim elected to the European Parliament on 4 June 2004. He was re-elected in June 2009.
His earliest political activity started with leafleting at the age of seven for the then Conservative Parliamentary candidate for Pendle. He later joined the Liberal Democrats in 1989. Sajjad was elected a member of Pendle Borough Council in 1994 and served until 2002 representing Brierfield ward.
In his first term Karim served on the International Trade Committee, Committee of Judicial Affairs and Human Rights Committees and was a Member of the European Parliament's "Committee of Investigation into alleged CIA extraordinary renditions and secret prisons" after having been the first European Parliamentarian to officially raise the matter. He was the European Legal Affairs Spokesperson and served as a Conservative whip. He was the European Parliamentary rapporteur for the EU-India Free Trade Agreement.
In 2005, he established the European Parliament Friends of Pakistan Group, which he chairs. He is also a member of the Friends of India and Friends of Bangladesh Groups.
He is the Vice-President of the European Parliament's Equality and Diversity Intergroup and Co-Chair of the European Muslim Forum. He has focused on the rise of intolerance in Europe in recent years, notably the rise of Islamophobia and anti-Semitism.
Karim is interested in human rights issues including child labour and the civil liberties of EU citizens in the War on Terror. He led the successful European Union contribution to the campaign for the commutation of the death penalty of British man, Mirza Tahir Hussain, who had spent half of his life on death row in Pakistan, for a crime he maintains he did not commit.
In December 2009, Karim was appointed as the Legal Affairs Spokesperson for the Conservative Group in the European Parliament. Karim also now serves on the Industry, Research and Energy Committee and is a substitute member of the Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee.
He is currently a member of the delegations with the Mashreq countries and the delegation to the Euro-Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly and a substitute member on the delegation for relations with Canada.
On 26 November 2008, whilst visiting India as part of a European Parliament Committee on International Trade delegation (ahead of an EU-India summit), he was caught up in the Mumbai attacks in the lobby of the Taj Mahal Palace & Tower hotel. Speaking to the Associated Press while holed up in the hotel's restaurant shortly after the terrorists gained control of the hotel, Karim said "I was in the main lobby and there was all of a sudden a lot of firing outside...all of a sudden another gunmen appeared in front of us, carrying machine gun-type weapons. And he just started firing at us ... I just turned and ran in the opposite direction."
Category:1970 births Category:Living people Category:Councillors in Lancashire Category:British politicians of South Asian descent Category:British Muslims Category:English people of Pakistani descent Category:Conservative Party (UK) politicians Category:Conservative Party (UK) MEPs Category:Alumni of London Guildhall University Category:Alumni of The College of Law Category:People associated with the 2008 Mumbai attacks Category:Members of the European Parliament for English constituencies Category:Liberal Democrat (UK) MEPs Category:MEPs for the United Kingdom 2004–2009 Category:MEPs for the United Kingdom 2009–2014
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