Activist and human rights campaigner Jemima Khan is to join the Independent as an associate news editor.

Khan will be writing interviews as well as contributing comment and features pages of the Independent and cut-price sister title i. She will also take on some commissioning duties.

She joins the Independent after guest-editing April’s edition of the New Statesman, which focused on freedom of information and free speech.

Khan interviewed Nick Clegg for the edition, about life in the coalition government and his relationship with David Cameron.

Simon Kelner, editor-in-chief of the Independent and i, said: “Anyone who knows Jemima will know that she is a forceful character with strong views. And anyone who saw her issue of the Statesman will have seen that she has an editorial flair.”

Khan said that she was “thrilled with the opportunity”.

“I am a huge fan of both papers and am very excited to be able to work with a talented team of writers and editors,” she added.

Khan appeared in an advert for i earlier this year alongside comedian Dom Joly. The Advertising Standards Agency ruled in May that the advert was misleading in its claim that i contained “no celeb gossip nonsense”.