Presidential Medal of Freedom: Pakistan-born Khizr Moazzam Khan to get top civil award of US
Khizr Moazzam Khan, who rose to fame in 2016 for challenging Trump, will receive America’s highest civil award, Presidential Medal of Freedom.
WASHINGTON: Khizr Moazzam Khan, a Gold Star father who rose to fame in 2016 for challenging Trump’s knowledge of the US Constitution, will receive America’s highest civil award — the Presidential Medal of Freedom — from President Joe Biden on July 7.
The founder of the Constitution Literacy and National Unity Center is among the 17 individuals from across the US who will receive the award this year, Dawn newspaper reported.
The term ‘Gold Star parents’ is used for individuals whose children die fighting for America. Mr Khan and Ghazala Khan are the parents of US Army Captain Humayun Khan who was killed during the Iraq war in 2004.
“The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the Nation’s highest civilian honor, presented to individuals who have made exemplary contributions to the prosperity, values, or security of the US, world peace, or other significant societal, public, or private endeavors,” the White House announced on Friday.
“Khizr Khan is a prominent advocate for the rule of law and religious freedom and served on the US Commission on International Religious Freedom under President Biden,” the statement added.
Mr Khan, who was born in Gujranwala and migrated to the US in 1980, is the first Pakistani American to receive this award.
In July 2016, the father of a Muslim American soldier killed in Iraq posed a question to Donald Trump: Have you read the Constitution?
To rapturous cheers, Pakistan-born Khizr Khan fiercely attacked the billionaire businessman Thursday at the Democratic convention in Philadelphia, saying that if it was up to Trump, his son never would have been American or served in the military.
Khan said that Hillary Clinton, by contrast, “called my son the best of America”.
The address was the latest effort by Democrats to highlight their diversity and criticise Trump’s most contentious plans. Beyond his proposed wall across Mexico, the billionaire businessman has threatened to ban Muslims from entering the United States if he becomes president.
Capt. Humayun Khan died in 2004 when a car loaded with explosives blew up at his compound. He was 27.
Honouring his son, Khizr Khan pulled a copy of the Constitution out of his suit pocket and offered to lend it to Trump.