Layeqa Bashir

Layeqa Bashir is a woman human rights defender and an Assistant Professor of Sociology in the Department of Basic Sciences and Humanities at the University of Asia Pacific, a private university in Dhaka, Bangladesh. She has been involved in facilitating various curricular activities and events for students, which has focused on the promotion of cultural rights. Additionally, she has served as a convenor for the University complaints committee which advances accountabililty for gender-based violence. She is also a member of the University Teachers Network, a platform of university teachers who actively defend academic freedom, freedom of expression and the right to education. During the July 2024 Student Movement in Bangladesh, she played a frontline role in peacefully protesting and supporting the movement’s call for democratic reform in Bangladesh.