ISLAMABAD: Fifteen international organizations urged Pakistan to release two human rights lawyers on Tuesday, saying their continued detention after the Supreme Court granted them bail could deter lawyers from taking politically sensitive cases.

Imaan Mazari-Hazir and her husband, Hadi Ali Chattha, have remained in custody since January, when an Islamabad court sentenced each to 17 years under Pakistan’s cybercrime law. Prosecutors alleged their social media posts spread false information, incited ethnic divisions and falsely implicated the military in terrorism. The lawyers deny the charges. The Supreme Court suspended their sentences on Sept. 17 while their appeals are pending, but police took them into custody in an older protest case before they left jail. An anti-terrorism court then sent them back on judicial remand.

Both lawyers have represented people alleging enforced disappearances and other abuses.

The organizations, including the International Commission of Jurists, the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute and the Law Society of England and Wales, said on Tuesday proceedings against lawyers for their advocacy could discourage others from representing such clients.

“The sequence of events is a clear indication that successive criminal proceedings are being weaponized to prolong their arbitrary deprivation of liberty despite judicial orders granting relief,” the groups said in a joint statement, calling for the couple’s release and independent judicial scrutiny of the grounds for their continued detention.

The case used to detain them again was registered in March 2025. Police accuse the couple of chanting anti-government slogans, blocking roads and obstructing officials during a protest in Islamabad. An anti-terrorism provision was added after the original complaint.

The organizations questioned its use in a case arising from a protest, while the allegations against the lawyers have yet to be decided by a court.

The couple’s lawyers then encountered an obstacle in seeking bail. An anti-terrorism court returned their applications because documents authorizing counsel to act for them had not been signed. On Saturday, the court issued a contempt notice to the superintendent of Adiala jail after the documents were not provided and the couple were not produced by video link.

At a hearing on Tuesday, the court said both lawyers had signed the authorization documents and dropped the contempt proceedings against jail officials. The couple appeared by video link in another case. The signing of the documents allows their lawyers to pursue bail applications, but the court did not grant them bail.

UN human rights experts have previously raised concerns about whether the couple had adequate opportunity to defend themselves in the cybercrime trial. Pakistani authorities have maintained that the judiciary is independent.