HRCP speaks out

In response to the public stoning of Farzana Iqbal outside the Lahore High Court in May, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) released a hard hitting advertisement headlined, ‘In some countries, it is too easy to get blood from a stone’. Zohra Yusuf, Chairperson, HRCP and ECD, Spectrum Y&R says the initiative for the advertisement came from Matt Batten, CCO, Wunderman UK (a company of the WPP network, of which Y&R is a part). Batten (who has no previous association with Pakistan) was so horrified by the incident that he and his team created the ad and then contacted Yusuf to find out how it could be publicised in Pakistan. She explains, “We released the ad on the HRCP platform with our logo and it was published free of cost in different newspapers.” Although this was an unusual situation in that the ad was created abroad, the HRCP often advertises issues for which it wants to create awareness and raise public support. Previously, ads have been done to speak out against the death penalty, torture and in support of the freedom of the press.