GENEVA, Switzerland: Five UN special rapporteurs on Wednesday condemned the conviction and lengthy jail sentences imposed on a prominent rights activist and her fellow lawyer husband in Pakistan over “anti-state” social media posts.
Imaan Mazari, a 32-year-old lawyer and vocal critic of Pakistan’s military, “disseminated highly offensive” content on X, according to an Islamabad court.
She and her husband Hadi Ali Chattha were jailed on January 25, with a court statement saying they “will have to remain in jail for 10 years.”
The UN experts said they had been jailed 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 said in a joint statement.
“Doing so risks undermining and criminalizing the work of lawyers and human rights defenders across Pakistan and has a chilling effect on civil society in the country.”
Mazari shot to prominence tackling some of Pakistan’s most sensitive topics while defending ethnic minorities, journalists facing defamation charges and clients branded blasphemers.
As a pro bono lawyer, Mazari has worked on some of the most sensitive cases in Pakistan, including the enforced disappearances of ethnic Balochs, as well as defending the community’s top activist, Mahrang Baloch.
Mazari and her husband have been the subject of multiple prosecutions in the past, but have never previously been convicted of wrongdoing.
“This pattern of prosecutions suggests an arbitrary use of the legal system as an instrument of harassment and intimidation in order to punish them for their work advocating for victims of alleged human rights violations,” the UN experts said.
“States must ensure lawyers are not subject to prosecution for any professional action, and that lawyers are not identified with their clients.”
The statement’s signatories included the special rapporteurs on human rights defenders, the independence of judges, freedom of opinion, freedom of association and on protecting rights while countering terrorism.
UN special rapporteurs are independent experts mandated by the UN Human Rights Council to report their findings. They do not speak in the name of the United Nations itself.
The UN experts have put their concerns to Islamabad.
