Abdul Kader Asmal (8 October 1934 – 22 June 2011) was a South African politician. He was a professor of human rights at the University of the Western Cape, chairman of the council of the University of the North and vice-president of the African Association of International Law. He was married to Louise Parkinson and had two sons. He was an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, received a doctorate Honoris Causa from Queen's University Belfast (1996) and was a laureate of the 2000 Stockholm Water Prize. Early life Born in 1934, Asmal grew up in Stanger, KwaZulu-Natal. He was the son of an Indian shopkeeper and one of seven children. When he was a schoolboy, he met Chief Albert Luthuli, who inspired him towards human rights. Asmal's political development first began in 1952 with the Defiance Campaign, when he was asked to become the secretary of the local rate payers' association. That exposed him to the local Indian community's efforts at dealing with apartheid when the government tried to enforce the Group Areas Act in Stanger. Later in 1952, Asmal left Stanger to attend the Springfield Teacher Training College in Durban. After graduating as a teacher in 1954, he was assigned to an all-Indian school in Darnall, KwaZulu-Natal. While at Darnall, he registered for a bachelor's degree by correspondence in English, politics, and history at UNISA. In 1959, Asmal qualified as a teacher and moved to London, where he enrolled at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Political career Asmal was the founder of the Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement. He claimed that while he was in Ireland in the late 1970s, he assisted the ANC to find IRA volunteers, who did reconnaissance on South Africa's Sasolburg refinery, which was then bombed by the ANC's military wing in 1980. While in London, he started the British Anti-Apartheid Movement and when he joined Trinity College Dublin as a teacher of human rights, labour and international law, he started the Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement. Asmal qualified as a barrister in both the London and Dublin Bars and received degrees from both the London School of Economics (LL.M. (Lond.)) and Trinity College, Dublin (M.A. (Dubl.)). He was a lecturer in law at Trinity College Dublin for 27 years, specializing in human rights, labour and international law. Asmal served on the ANC's constitutional committee from 1986. While in Ireland he