Hadi | Pakistan

Five United Nations (UN) experts on Wednesday expressed alarm over the conviction of lawyers Imaan Zainab Mazari-Hazir and her husband, Hadi Ali Chatta. Last month, an Islamabad sessions court had sentenced Imaan and Hadi to a total of 17 years in prison on multiple charges in a case pertaining to controversial social media posts. In a joint statement on Wednesday, UN special rapporteurs Margaret Satterthwaite, Ben Saul, Mary Lawlor, Irene Khan and Gina Romero noted that the two were convicted on multiple criminal charges, which resulted in lengthy prison sentences “for simply exercising rights guaranteed by international human rights law”. “Lawyers, like other individuals, are entitled to freedom of expression. The exercise of this right should never be conflated with criminal conduct, especially not terrorism,” they were quoted as saying, while also emphasising the vague definition of terrorism-related offences under Pakistan’s counter-terrorism framework. “Doing so risks undermining and criminalising the w...

ISLAMABAD: Former federal minister Shireen Mazari on Tuesday approached the Islamabad High Court (IHC), seeking urgent judicial intervention to allow her to meet her imprisoned daughter, human rights lawyer Imaan Zainab Mazari-Hazir, and son-in-law Hadi Ali Chatha, both held in Adiala jail. A sessions court had sentenced Imaan and Hadi to a total of 17 years in prison on multiple charges in a case pertaining to controversial social media posts. In a writ petition filed under Article 199 of the Constitution, Mazari, through prominent lawyers including Kamran Murtaza, members of the Islamabad Bar Council (IBC) Raja Aleem Abbasi, Chaudhry Hafeezullah Yaqub, Zafar Khokhar, Asif Irfan, Abdul Rehman Hur Bajwa, President Islamabad High Court Bar Association (IHCBA) Syed Wajid Ali Gillani, President District Bar Association Chaudhry Naeem Gujjar, Riasat Ali Azad, and others, alleged that jail authorities had completely cut off the detainees from family contact and legal counsel, without any written order, recorded re...

The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) and its partner organisations on Thursday published a joint statement condemning the “arbitrary arrest” and conviction of lawyers Imaan Zainab Mazari-Hazir and Hadi Ali Chatta, and called for their release. Imaan and Hadi were sentenced on January 24 under the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act’s (Peca) sections 9 (glorification of an offence), 10 (cyberterrorism), and 26-A (false and fake information). They were handed a total of 17 years in jail, with the longest sentence being 10 years, and fined Rs36 million each collectively. The joint statement released on Thursday — signed by the Balochistan Bar Council, the Hyderabad Bar Association, the Karachi Bar Association, the Sindh High Court Bar Association and other global bodies — condemned the “arbitrary arrest and subsequent conviction” of Imaan and Hadi, calling for their immediate release and measures to ensure the conviction was set aside. “Both lawyers have faced targeted reprisals, including harassment th...

ISLAMABAD: A sessions court on Saturday sentenced lawyer Imaan Zainab Mazari-Hazir and her spouse Hadi Ali Chattha to a total of 17 years in prison on multiple charges in a case pertaining to social media posts. The lawyer couple were already on judicial remand at Rawalpindi’s Adiala jail after they were arrested in Islamabad in connection with a separate case on Friday. The written order by Additional District and Sessions Judge Muhammad Afzal Majoka stated that the “prosecution has been able to prove its case against both the accused” under sections 9 (glorification of an offence), 10 (cyberterrorism), 26-A (false and fake information) of the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (Peca). Hence, under Peca’s Section 9, Imaan and Hadi were sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for five years each with a fine of Rs5 million each. If they failed to pay, the two will have to spend one more year of jail. Under Section 10 of Peca, they were each handed 10 years of rigorous imprisonment with a fine of Rs30m each, with a...

A sessions court on Saturday sentenced lawyer Imaan Zainab Mazari-Hazir and her spouse, Hadi Ali Chattha, to a total of 17 years in prison on multiple charges in a case about controversial social media posts, a day after they were arrested in Islamabad. According to the written order, Imaan “consistently disseminated highly offensive, misleading and anti-state contents on social media”, with the “active connivance” of Hadi. The order also observed that Imaan’s tweets made between 2021 and 2025 from “portrayed the agenda” of the banned Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) and Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Lawyers, activists and politicians expressed their outrage over the sentencing. Here are some of the reactions. ‘Completely illegal’ Digital rights expert and activist Usama Khilji said, “Completely illegal, unconstitutional and baseless order without any roots in due process, especially as the transfer application is pending in the high court.” He said that the sentencing of human rights lawyers for “tweets...

ISLAMABAD: A district and sessions court on Saturday reissued non-bailable arrest warrants against Imaan Zainab Mazari-Hazir and her husband, Hadi Ali Chattha, for their repeated absences from trial proceedings. In the case registered under the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act, 2016 (Peca), the two have been accused of inciting divisions on linguistic grounds through social media posts and creating the impression that the armed forces were engaged in terrorism within the country. Court proceedings on Saturday were conducted over three sittings — 9am, noon and 2pm. At each stage, Imaan and Hadi were absent from the proceedings. In the certified copies of court orders dated January 17, Additional District and Sessions Judge Muhammad Afzal Majoka — presiding over the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Court (Islamabad-West) — noted that earlier warrants could not be executed despite repeated attempts by law enforcement and the National Cyber Crimes Investigation Agency (NCCIA). During the proceedings, officials ...

Former minister Shireen Mazari said on Saturday that a “heavily armed raiding party” of the Islamabad police had surrounded her house at 1am and enquired about her daughter, Imaan Zainab Mazari-Hazir, and son-in-law, Hadi Ali Chattha. “At 1am this morning, a heavily armed raiding party of ICT police from Secretariat thana (police station) surrounded my home and asked for Imaan and Hadi. They were not there, and we informed them of the same. Cops said they had an FIR (first information report) against them and they should report to the thana. Eventually they left,” she posted on X. In a subsequent post, she referred to a protest at the Islamabad High Court yesterday, where Imaan — who is a lawyer and rights activist — and others had raised slogans in support of judicial independence. The lawyers had staged a protest on the premises of the IHC to oppose the suspension of Justice Tariq Mahmood Jahangiri from judicial work. Isl­a­mabad Bar Council member Ale­­em Abbasi, ex-president of the Islamabad High Court Ba...