ISLAMABAD: US President Joe Biden has nominated Pakistani-American lawyer Khizr Khan to the US Commission on International Religious Freedom.
Born in in Gujranwala, a city in Pakistan’s Punjab province, Khan moved with his family to the US in 1980. He received LL.M. degrees from the University of Missouri Law School in 1982 and Harvard Law School in 1986.
He is the founder of the Constitution Literacy and National Unity Project.
The White House recognized Khan in a nomination statement on Friday as “an advocate for religious freedom as a core element of human dignity.”
The religious freedom commission promotes universal respect for freedom of religion or belief for all as a core objective of US foreign policy.
The announcement said Khan “devotes a substantial amount of his time to providing legal services to veterans, men and women serving in uniform, and their families.”
Khan is known for criticizing Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump, for his disparaging remarks on Muslim-Americans during the 2016 Democratic National Convention. He said that Trump had “sacrificed nothing and no one” as he raised a copy of the US Constitution, asking if Trump had ever read it.
Khan’s son, Capt. Humayun Khan, died while serving with the American Army in Baghdad in 2004.
