New Delhi: An anti-terrorism court in Pakistan sentenced prominent human rights lawyers, Imaan Zainab Mazari-Hazir and her husband, Hadi Ali Chattha, to 10 years in prison each on Thursday for removing traffic police barriers along a route designated for the visiting England international cricket team in 2024.
The case dates back to 25 October 2024, during a Test cricket match between Pakistan and England in Islamabad. The couple faced accusations under anti-terrorism legislation for removing traffic police barriers along a route designated for the visiting international cricket team. Prosecutors accused them of creating a security risk and inciting public unrest.
Mazari is a human rights lawyer known for representing victims of alleged abuses and publicly criticising extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances. She is the daughter of Shireen Mazari, a former federal minister for human rights under Imran Khan’s government.
Chattha is a criminal lawyer who has represented people accused of blasphemy. He has also worked with the Asma Jahangir Legal Cell, representing victims of sexual violence, rape and enforced disappearances.
The couple’s legal work has brought them into contact with communities that often have limited access to legal representation. In their statements, they argued that their prosecution was connected to their work for people who were marginalised, vulnerable or unable to defend themselves against the state.
The verdict led to criticism from Pakistani civil society, who have questioned the fairness of the proceedings and the broader implications for constitutional freedoms in Pakistan.
“Imaan & Hadi are paying the price for standing up to a cruel and vindictive state run by petty men with fragile egos. Absolutely absurd verdict,” Nida Kirmani, a Pakistani academic, wrote on X.
Reema Omer, a Pakistani legal expert, called them prisoners of conscience and described their convictions as textbook examples of using law and the judicial process as “weapons of persecution”.
Human rights activist Maryam Nawaz Khan also condemned the verdict, describing the trial as a sham.
“Sham/secret trial delivers a sham sentence. Imaan Mazari and Hadi Ali Chattha, two human rights lawyers, (were) sentenced to 10 years in prison over road barriers they maintain they never removed. First, their tweets; now, this. Criminalising dissent and persecuting lawyers is an assault on fundamental rights and constitutional freedoms. This sentence is outrageous and unlawful”, she added.
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A trial conducted behind bars
The proceedings concluded Tuesday at Adiala Jail, where the anti-terrorism court gave its verdict. The defence counsel has confirmed plans to challenge the decision in higher courts.
“The evidence produced during this trial is not against us, but in fact a charge sheet against (prosecution witnesses)/police officials and the state,” Imaan and Hadi said, according to a Dawn report.
They accused the prosecution witnesses of being part of a state apparatus that had targeted them because of their human rights work, including their provision of free legal assistance to marginalised communities. Their work, they said, had included representing street vendors, people accused in allegedly false blasphemy cases and victims of enforced disappearances.
“I am a prisoner of conscience who has been at the receiving end of state persecution,” Imaan’s statements read.
She added that the couple had challenged the jail trial in the Islamabad High Court and the Supreme Court. She also objected to the manner in which the proceedings were conducted, saying that she and her husband had been presented in a cage that prevented them from communicating effectively with their lawyers or the court.
Mazari also disputed the prosecution’s account of the incident involving the road barriers.
She said that she and Chattha had been travelling to court on 25 October 2024, when police officers informed them that the route had been temporarily closed to allow an international cricket team to pass.
According to her statement, she asked the officers whether they had a magistrate’s order authorising the closure. She said they did not produce one and that the prosecution had still not presented such an order during the trial.
Mazari rejected the testimony against the couple as “false, fabricated and contradictory” to video footage of the incident. She said the footage showed a police officer throwing a barrier at her lower abdomen, causing her to fall to the ground.
“We are being made an example to further cement the chilling effect against those who stand (or want to stand) against tyranny, oppression and injustice,” she said.
Chattha, in his own statement, said he believed he was being punished for supporting his wife’s activism as well as for choosing to make resistance to injustice a shared commitment.
“I am being punished for not only supporting my wife’s work and activism, but for choosing this path of resisting injustice as our life journey together,” he said.
He added that the contrast between recognition of his work abroad and the treatment of his family at home was particularly painful.
“It is deeply painful for me that while my work on human rights has received recognition abroad, even today, my family and I continue to suffer reprisals for the same in my home country,” he said.
The latest conviction follows a separate case involving the couple’s social media posts, in which they were sentenced to 17 years in prison in January 2025 under the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act, the controversial law in Pakistan governing cybercrime and online expression.
After months of litigation, the Supreme Court suspended their sentences on 17 September this year and ordered their release pending a final decision by the Islamabad High Court on their appeals.
However, hours after the Supreme Court’s order, Islamabad police arrested the couple again in connection with the security breach case. The fresh arrest placed them back in custody.
Shireen Mazari, Imaan’s mother, also criticised the outcome. She said that the conviction amounted to 13 years, to run concurrently, despite what she described as proof that the case was false and the trial had violated due process.
She also drew a comparison with the release of the daughter of Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and her husband, whom she described as absconders in corruption cases. She argued that the treatment of Imaan and Hadi reflected vengeance rather than justice or due process.
“Imaan is a warning to everyone else… sadly, it’s working…”, former Dawn editor Cyril Almeida wrote on X.
(Edited by Saptak Datta)