Abdul Rashid Ghazi (c. 29 January 1964 – 10 July 2007) was a Pakistani Islamic scholar and diplomat-turned Islamist dissident who served as Khatib of Lal Masjid, the Chief Executive of Jamia Faridia University, the Chairman of Defense of Human Rights Pakistan (DHR), a member of UNICEF Committee on preventive healthcare and a leader of Difa-e-Pakistan Council. Prior to this he had worked for the Ministry of Education and was a diplomat affiliated with UNESCO, a specialized agency of the United Nations.
He was the son of Muhammad Abdullah Ghazi, and younger brother of Abdul Aziz Ghazi.
Abdul Rashid was assassinated on 10 July 2007 during Operation Sunrise after Pakistan Army Special Service Group stormed the Lal Masjid in Islamabad.
In February 2016, Islamabad High Court issued an arrest warrants for Pervez Musharraf and several other high-ranking officials for their role in the targeted killing of Ghazi and sought a Red Notice from Interpol. The Supreme Court of Pakistan also ruled that the killing was an extrajudicial assassination.
Abdul Rashid Ghazi was born on 29 January 1964 in the town of Basti Abdullah near Rojhan in Rajanpur, the border district of Punjab province of Pakistan. He hailed from an ethnic Baloch family belonging to the Sodwani clan of the Mazari tribe. Ghazi was fluent in his native Balochi, Saraiki, Urdu, Persian, English and Arabic. He generally used to communicate in Balochi with his family and the tribals of his area.
In his youth, Abdul Rashid defied his father's wish that he receive formal Islamic education as he wanted to live a modern life. He completed his Master of Science degree in history from Quaid-e-Azam University Islamabad in 1987–1988. A photo of him and his classmates still hangs on the history department's wall. According to one of his professors, "He was a normal, modern student and a lively fellow who was well adjusted to a co-educational system." Remembered by his friends as "a bright student and an active member of a progressive student organization", "He could have been a ambassador in the foreign office or an educationist", his friend once stated in an interview.
He was non-religious during that time, hardly if ever going to the mosque and reading authors like Karl Marx, Max Weber and Henry Kissinger, "his greatest ambition was to become a diplomat at the United Nations", a friend added, to the extent that he stopped talking to his father, who was antagonized by his "Westernized" lifestyle.
Declan Walsh also quotes peoples who knew him during this time, saying that he was a secularized student reading the likes of Nietzsche and Rousseau, mingling with women and being fond of singing.
Having completed his M.Sc. in History, he secured a position at the Pakistan National Commission and later joined the Ministry of Education in Islamabad as a Grade-17 officer, where he briefly served as the editor of its monthly magazine, Piyami.
He subsequently joined the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN).
He initially served at UNESCO's National Office in Islamabad, Later, he was briefly transferred to the organization's Regional Bureau for Education in Asia, located in Thailand.
In his later career, he was stationed at the Maison de l'UNESCO in Paris, France, serving as a Representative and Diplomat. He was also as a member of the Pakistani Delegation to UNESCO linked with Embassy of Pakistan in Paris.
In 1988, Ghazi was convinced by his brother, Abdul Aziz, an active participant in the Soviet–Afghan War, to travel with him to Afghanistan's Paktia Province. The brothers subsequently saw brief combat service in the region. According to a contemporary account from a fellow fighter, they engaged in several skirmishes with Soviet forces near the Afghanistan–Pakistan border.
In one incident, Ghazi narrowly survived a land mine explosion, after which he adopted the honorific title Ghazi (Arabic: "warrior"). Journalist Declan Walsh cites a companion of Ghazi who stated that he was primarily motivated by the excitement and adventure of war rather than religious ideology and notes that this attitude was not uncommon among young men joining the anti-Soviet resistance.
In 1997, Ghazi traveled to Kandahar with his father and a delegation of religious scholars, where they met with Taliban leader Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden.
Ghazi, when referring to these events, stated: "The meeting inspired me to work for the establishment of Islamic state." He recalled that at the end of the meeting, he picked up and drank water from a cup which bin Laden had used. An amused bin Laden asked Ghazi why he had done so, to which Ghazi replied: "I drank from your glass so that Allah would make me a great warrior like you".
In October 1998, Ghazi's father was assassinated in the courtyard of Lal Masjid as he returning from teaching a class at Jamia Faridia. Due to a lack of confidence in Pakistan's legal system, Abdul Aziz, the elder brother of Ghazi, initially declined to file a First Information Report (FIR). However, Ghazi proceeded to file the FIR, prompting a police investigation into the case. After persistent efforts, a suspect was arrested and subsequently identified by an eyewitness during an identification parade.
Despite this, the suspect was inexplicably released the following day. Ghazi protested the release, warning the authorities that he would pursue legal action if the suspect was not promptly re-arrested. As pressure mounted, he reportedly faced threats, including a warning to withdraw the case or risk suffering a fate similar to that of his father.