ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Monday dismissed a case filed against lawyer and rights activist Imaan Zainab Mazari-Hazir by the Pakistan Army for “slandering” the country’s military chief.
Last month the military made an official complaint with the police against Mazari-Hazir, accusing her of using derogatory and hateful remarks against army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa. The activist is accused of inciting against the armed forces and defaming Bajwa. The police case against her, filed on May 26, was moved by Lt Col. Syed Humayun Iftikhtar, representing the Judge Advocate General (JAG) branch of the military’s General Headquarters (GHQ).
The JAG branch of the Pakistan Armed Forces is composed of the military’s senior officers, lawyers and judges who provide legal services to the army, air force, navy, and marines at all levels of command. The branch falls under the law directorate of the army.
At Monday’s hearing, Mazari-Hazir’s lawyer said her client had expressed “regret” over her words and accepted that “what happened should not have happened.”
IHC Chief Justice Athar Minallah said Mazari-Hazir was a “respectable officer of the court” and should not have uttered the words even under “normal circumstances,” He, however, accepted her petition to dismiss the case against her and subsequently dismissed it.
The police report against the lawyer alleges she had made a “derogatory and hateful” statement on May 21, the day her mother former human rights minister Shireen Mazari was arrested from outside her house in a land ownership and transfer case.
A video of a visibly distraught Mazari-Hazir was later shared on social media in which she is heard accusing Bajwa of being behind her mother’s arrest. She did not offer support for her allegations against Bajwa. The video of her outburst went viral on social media.
Her mother, who served as a human rights minister in the Cabinet of former Prime Minister Imran Khan, was detained over a land-grabbing allegation from decades ago. She was released hours later, after a court decided she was arrested in violation of a law stipulating that no lawmaker can be detained without permission from the parliament speaker.