ISLAMABAD: Prominent human rights lawyer Imaan Zainab Mazari-Hazir was rearrested on Monday shortly after she was released from Rawalpindi’s Adiala jail on bail in a sedition case, a lawyer from the family said.
Mazari-Hazir and Ali Wazir, co-founder of the Pashtun ethnic rights movement, the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM), were arrested earlier this month in a case that has put a spotlight on what rights groups have called a growing crackdown on politicians and rights activists in Pakistan. The arrests on Aug. 20 came two days after they addressed a rally organized by the PTM in which they criticized Pakistan’s all-powerful army. They are both charged with sedition, preventing government officials from carrying out their duties and damaging public property.
“@ImaanZHazir has been rearrested on terrorism charges by the @ICT_Police from outside Adiala Jail,” family lawyer Ahsan J. Pirzada said. “Bara Kahu police has taken custody of Imaan & have refused to share any FIR [police complaint] with us nor have they shared any arrest warrants with us.”
At an Aug. 18 PTM rally, Mazari-Hazir and Wazir both criticized the Pakistani military over enforced abductions, which the army denies being involved in. In videos widely circulated on social media, the human rights lawyer urged action against serving military officials involved in such acts, calling them “traitors.”
Mazari-Hazir’s mother Shireen Mazari is a former human rights lawyer and an ex-member of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party of former Prime Minister Imran Khan. The PTI has faced intense state action since May when Khan was briefly arrested in a graft case, unleashing nationwide protests in which his supporters ransacked and damaged military and other properties. Khan was released on bail then but is currently in jail in another corruption case and has been disqualified from running for elections.
Wazir, who co-founded the PTM which campaigns against alleged extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances of Pashtuns and other ethnic minorities, served as a legislator in Pakistan’s National Assembly from August 2018 to August 2023.
