Karim Lahidji, an Iranian lawyer, was elected president of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) during the recent 38th FIDH General Congress in Istanbul in which the 164-member organizations met to define the main FIDH orientations for the next three years.
Lahidji, vice-president of the FIDH and former president of the League for the Defense of Human Right in Iran, succeeds Tunisian Souhayr Belhassen, who held the office for the past six years. Lahidji has lived in exile in Paris since 1982, three years after the Islamic revolution brought Ayatollah Khomeini to power in Teheran.