28 Jan 2026 | Asia and Pacific, News, Pakistan
Imaan Zainab Mazari is one of Pakistan’s more prominent human rights lawyers. She is now in jail with her husband after being arrested and taken into custody last week without a warrant.
Human rights organisations, including Index, are calling for their immediate release.
Mazari, who is only 32, rose to prominence representing journalists, writers, and activists dubbed anti-state and anti-army. She also represented many victims of human rights violations, false blasphemy cases, sexual violence and enforced disappearances in Pakistan.
In June last year, she was honoured with the World Expression Forum (WEXFO) Young Inspiration Award for her extraordinary courage, integrity, and commitment to justice and the rule of law.
Mazari and her husband Hadi Ali Chattha, also a lawyer, were taken by police from car as they were on their way to a sessions court in Islamabad.
The detention came after they had been sentenced to a total of 17 years in jail on multiple charges of disseminating “highly offensive, misleading and anti-state” content in tweets. The couple have denied all charges.
Mazari is well known in Pakistan. She is the daughter of the country’s former minister for human rights, Shireen Mazari, and her late father was the South Asian country’s top paediatrician. She studied law at the University of Edinburgh, graduating in 2015.
Her arrest along with her husband has further compounded and intensified Pakistan’s shrinking space for freedom of expression and dissent while raising fresh questions about civil liberties and the increasing power of the country’s powerful military establishment.
Dawn, Pakistan’s most respected and oldest English daily newspaper, criticised the arrest, termed it as “another low point in the history of Pakistan’s justice system”.
The newspaper further stated that: “If such convictions stand, the message to lawyers, journalists and citizens alike is unmistakable: dissent will not merely be discouraged, it will be criminalised’.
Among other cases, Mazari worked on the cases of enforced disappearances of ethnic Baloch being allegedly disappeared at the hands of the state, as well as defending Dr Mahrang Baloch, a vocal activist who advocated for the rights of Baloch in Balochistan; she is also currently in jail.
Mazari also represented journalist Asad Ali Toor who was not only arrested and allegedly beaten up by the Pakistani authorities but is also currently facing travel restrictions due to his journalism. “She proved a constant ‘challenge for the state’, which is why she has been arrested,” Asad Toor said.
In August 2025, the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency (NCCIA) filed a case against Mazari and Chattha under the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (PECA). The case is based on tweets published between 2021 and 2025 critical of human rights violations in Balochistan and Khyber Phaktunkwa provinces in Pakistan.
“In 2016, when the PECA was passed during the Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) government, it was widely criticised as a tool to suppress dissent,” said Farieha Aziz, who is a co-founder of Bolo Bhi, an advocacy forum for digital rights. “Since then, vague call-up notices and First Information Reports (FIRs) against political workers, journalists, and dissidents have become routine. The accusations almost always involve posting ‘anti-state’ content.”
In Pakistan, lawyers, journalists, politicians, rights activists, and people belonging to different walks of life have widely condemned the couple’s arrest. Her mother, the former Pakistani minister for human rights, called the sentencing “totally illegal”.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, an independent and non-partisan organisation committed to protecting human rights in Pakistan, condemned the arrest while terming the case “a tool to harass, intimidate and ultimately muzzle dissent”.
Amnesty International noted the “lack of adherence to due process” and termed these were “retaliatory cases aimed solely at silencing Ms Mazari and Chattha for their human rights work and dissent”.
Mazari herself has made her own views plain on the state of human rights in Pakistan. She reportedly said in court, “Truth seems overwhelmingly difficult in this country.”
24 Oct 2025 | Asia and Pacific, News, Pakistan
Inside the National Press Club (NPC) of Islamabad stands a column topped with a hand cast in iron and holding a pen, which shows the concept of a free press. But unfortunately, realities on the ground are quite different in the capital, let alone other parts of Pakistan. The proof: On 2 October 2025, the police carried out a raid at the NPC and assaulted journalists present inside the press club.
Journalists’ unions and human rights bodies have condemned the assault by the Islamabad police in the strongest terms with the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) demanding an immediate inquiry and saying that those responsible should be brought to book.
During my visit to the press club this month, I met journalists, photographers, and cameramen who were assaulted by the police. One of them was Mohammad Shezad. According to him, he was beaten up by officers carrying out the raid.
“The cops grabbed me by my shirt,” he told Index on Censorship. “As I resisted, they ripped my shirt across the back.”
Dawn, Pakistan’s largest English-language daily broadsheet, condemned the raid the very next day in an editorial, calling it “a trend that one associates with authoritarian regimes, which crush protest and cannot tolerate even peaceful dissent”.
“On that very day, there were three demonstrations at the press club,” recalled Azhar Jatoi, the president of the NPC, during an interview with Index. “The JKJAAC (Jammu Kashmir Joint Awami Action Committee) had issued a call for a demonstration at the press club, and they were surrounded by the police as soon as they started demonstrating.”
The JKJAAC is an alliance demanding civil liberties and political rights in the Kashmir region in Pakistan, an end to special privileges for government officials, the restoration of student unions, access to free and quality healthcare and education, among other things.
The organisation had engaged in talks with the government which failed, and that is why they called for a region-wide strike on 29 September. In the lead up to the strike, the government shut down all mobile, landline and internet services in the region, but unfortunately, the protests soon turned violent. According to a report by Reuters, eight were killed in the protests.
As a result, the JKJAAC protestors went to demonstrate outside the National Press Club in Islamabad, so their demonstrations could be peacefully recorded.
According to Jatoi, the police started assaulting the journalists to stop them reporting on how the protesters were being beaten and dragged away.
Rashed Ahmad, who works at the press club, said while talking to Index that he too was beaten up by the police when he wanted to close the gate.
Most of the journalists present at the NPC complained about the police raid, calling it an attack against the press freedom in Pakistan. One of them was Ishaque Chaudry, a senior journalist in Islamabad who said that there had been attacks on the press club before.
“This is not the first time that the journalists have been assaulted at the press club. In the past, these kinds of incidents have taken place too,” he told Index. He added that these attacks were happening when Pakistan had a democratic government, and not when the country had been under military rule.
Other journalists echoed the same claims. Afzal Butt, the president of PFUJ (Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists), termed the assault “one of the darkest days” in Pakistan while talking about the press club raid.
It is interesting to note that Islamabad used to be a safe place for journalists. But over the last few years, it has become unsafe. According to an annual press freedom report by Freedom Network, Islamabad was termed in 2024 as the “second most dangerous place to practise journalism” in the country with a quarter of all attacks on journalists happening in the capital.
This is not something surprising. The most senior journalists, known nationally in the country, have been attacked in Islamabad for years. In 2017, a senior investigative journalist of The News Ahmed Noorani was assaulted by knife-wielding assailants along with his driver in Islamabad. Due to the persistent threats to his life, he fled the country.
In 2021, prominent Pakistani journalist Asad Toor was assaulted by three unidentified men who broke into his apartment in Islamabad. In the same year, senior journalist Absar Alam too was shot and injured in an attack in Islamabad.
The list of assaults against journalists in Islamabad goes on. But the reporters this time around were lucky enough to survive. They are lucky in the sense that Pakistan is still one the deadliest countries for journalists to work in the world according to the latest figures from Reporters without Borders. At least 138 journalists have been killed in the country since 1990.
Instead of protecting journalists, government-sponsored advertisements appeared in media on the same day as the police carried out the raid on the press club, portraying journalists, freelancers, and others as anti-state.
Farooq Sulehria, a teacher at Beaconhouse National University in Lahore and author of the books on the media in Pakistan, told Index that the raid on the press club was part of “a creeping authoritarianism in Pakistan”.
He further explained that by creeping authoritarianism he meant the increasing repression of the state in Pakistan, which was affecting aspects of life where it was not present before. “For instance, the police carried out a raid inside the press club in Islamabad which people could hardly think that could happen,” he said.
In his concluding remarks, journalist Ishaque Chaurdy comes up with a disconcerting view while talking about police raid at the club: “If this is the case in the capital for journalists, then the situation for journalists is obviously quite worse than we can imagine in rest of Pakistan.”
10 Oct 2025 | Asia and Pacific, News, Pakistan
The weather was pleasantly cool in the Degari area outside Quetta when I visited along with a local guide at the end of September. There is silence because the population is scattered. But the district is dominated by the local Satakzai tribesmen in this part of Balochistan, a southwestern province of Pakistan, sharing a border with Afghanistan and Iran.
In recent months, the Degari region has attracted nationwide media attention for all the wrong reasons: a gruesome video went viral on social media, in which a couple can be seen being shot multiple times at point blank range.
They were later identified as Noor Bano Satakzai and Ehsan Sumalani. And they were killed in the name of honour – the murder of a person, especially of a girl, bringing shame to the family. In most of the cases, the victims are killed for refusing to marry, committing adultery or being in a relationship that displeases their relatives or family members. The crimes are frequently committed by those family members against their female relatives. In this case it was allegedly the local tribal council, the Jirga which was involved in their deaths.
“In Balochistan, honour killings take place due to socio-economic reasons, as well to show muscular power by men to settle personal scores over matters such as land disputes and debts,” says Sadia Baloch, a human rights defender in Balochistan who documents gender-based violence.
“When I studied cases in Balochistan, I came across a lot of cases in a short period, in which women have been silenced or killed in the name of honour.”
Sadia hails from Balochistan’s Nasirabad belt, where women are routinely silenced. One tragic incident in this region took place in 2008, when three teenage girls – believed to have been aged between 16 and 18 – were buried alive in an honour killing.
In a high-profile case in 2023, three bullet-riddled bodies—one girl and two boys—were found in a well near the house of Balochistan’s minister and tribal chief Sardar Abdur Rehman Khetran. He was arrested in connection with the triple murder and for keeping the children in his private jail in Balochistan. He was given bail and quickly released and remains in the Provincial Assembly of Balochistan.
Even after the Degari incident, honour killings continue to take place in the said division and innocent lives are taken away, particularly of women and girls.
According to Sadia, families abandon if not kill women involved (even allegedly) in cases of honour. They give women to the Sardars (tribal leaders), particularly in the Sindh province, who hold social legitimacy and who largely decide their fate.
This can involve them being forcibly married off in exchange for money, made to work as servants in the Sardar’s home or being murdered in an honour killing which take place with absolute impunity.
“The families hand over their girls to the tribal heads who sell them out [and] take a small amount,” she laments. “The said cases don’t get reported at all, which is why there is no end to the women being silenced in the name of honour.”
According to human rights organisations, a thousand women are killed in the name of honour in Pakistan annually, although most of these cases go unreported in the country itself.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) states that at least 405 women were killed in Pakistan in the name of honour in 2024.
According to activists, the actual figure is higher because cases of honour killings don’t come into the limelight, because they get buried along with the victims.
Punjab is one of four provinces that share the grisly record of having most honour killings.
Based in Lahore, Punjab’s provincial capital, Sunny Zia works at the HRCP.
“It is a known fact Punjab is the most populous province in a country with a population of over 100 million people, where almost half of Pakistan lives. This is why the figure related to honour killings of the women is reportedly higher than the other provinces. There is better media coverage too,” Sunny told Index.
“In Punjab, there is a strong caste system just like in India. In many cases, honour killings are related to the caste system as well when inter-caste marriages take place which are not socially accepted.”
Shah Mohammad Marri, a prolific author and historian who writes frequently about tribal affairs, told Index: “In Pakistan’s tribal belt, Sardars get to decide about cases of honour killings as there are no laws or police stations for the local tribesmen. The reason, the Sardar is the supreme authority there and they rule the roost.”
Jahanzeb Rind, an assistant professor at LUMS (Lahore University of Management Sciences), told Index: “In Pakistan’s patriarchal society, even though both male and female couples are killed in the name of honour, the majority of the victims are female.”
“Our judicial system is weak,” added Rind. “The state has neither given its citizens the proper rights nor due statuses, especially in the tribal belt of the country, which is why people go to tribal leaders to sort out their issues out of court. This is why honour killing persists.”
While writing this piece, I picked up a newspaper and came across an article about Pakistan’s women which attracted my attention for all the wrong reasons.
The article said 93% of women in Pakistan experience some form of sexual violence in public places during their lifetime and 73% of women and girls face physical or sexual violence from their intimate partners, family members, friends, relatives or neighbours; 62% of the reported victims are between 10 and 19 years old.
Pakistan has clearly failed its women.
Honour killings are the pinnacle of this shame but the problems go deeper. Even today, women are silenced in the name of honour as if society was still living in medieval times.
19 Dec 2024 | News, Pakistan
In the last week of November, Pakistan went into what was essentially an internet blackout. Social media apps like WhatsApp were inaccessible after the authorities blocked internet and mobile phone services. This was ahead of a planned march to Islamabad by supporters of former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party (PTI), in protest of Khan’s imprisonment.
The government cited security concerns and initially said it would be a partial shutdown, but internet delays and shutdowns were reported across the country. Two weeks after the protest, users were still reporting connection delays that are impacting both their communications and their livelihoods. In addition to this most recent internet shutdown, Pakistani authorities have also restricted connection through a content specific “firewall”.
This isn’t the only form of censorship seen in Pakistan amid the crackdown on PTI’s long march, both before and after the event. Prominent journalist Matiullah Jan was picked up by a group of unidentified individuals from Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) hospital in Islamabad on 28 November and released on 30 November on bail under a narcotics and terror case that international human rights organisations are calling “bogus” and “baseless”.
Soon after his abduction, his son put out a statement calling out authorities for arresting his father over his reporting. Jan was also abducted in 2020, and is one of many journalists in Pakistan who continue to be punished for their work.
Farieha Aziz, a Karachi-based journalist and director of digital rights organisation Bolo Bhi, told Index that Pakistan’s increase in crackdowns and censorship in recent years impacts people in one of two ways.
“Some will [fight it] even more, and some will become more circumspect,” she said. Experts believe that what happened around the protest seems to be the final piece in long drawn-out efforts to slowly curb internet access and freedom of expression in the country.
With internet access being shut down regularly whenever there’s a major event — including protests and elections — these attempts are becoming increasingly successful.
“These restrictions will only increase. They aren’t something that will go away with time,” said digital rights researcher Seerat Khan, adding that authoritarianism is increasing across the globe and that those influences are being seen in Pakistan too.
Aziz added that Pakistan’s direction makes it comparable with countries which are known for their questionable human rights records. She said that parallels can be made with Myanmar and China, for instance, and restricting the use of virtual private networks (VPNs) can be compared to Russia.
What’s particularly concerning activists and everyday citizens is that this censorship is becoming part of everyday life. Aside from the complete internet shutdowns — which already cause significant damage — internet delays and bans on certain content are also common and a lot harder to spot.
Digital rights activist and researcher Anam Baloch explained that by not blocking entire platforms all the time, Pakistan’s internet bans aren’t always immediately detectable.
“Recently, WhatsApp and Instagram issues were reported but when we tested [them] on OONI [Open Observatory of Network Interference] they were fine because they were not blocking entire platforms,” Baloch told Index.
It’s not just freedom of expression that’s impacted. Pakistan’s economy heavily relies on its growing digital sector, and the country produces 20,000 IT graduates every year — many of whom work as freelancers or in small startups that rely on the internet. IT industry trade association, the Pakistan Software Houses Association (P@SHA), released a statement predicting that the disruptions could result in a loss of $300 million for the country’s IT sector.
“A lot of reporting has been done on how it affects freelancers and small businesses, which is true because they don’t have backups. But what the media is [leaving] out is that the internet forms the basis of most businesses, even in Pakistan, where for some reason people think it doesn’t matter. Everything works on some kind of digital connectivity,” freelance cybercrime and tech journalist Sindhu Abbasi said.
All of these impacts are linked together, Khan added, and freedom of expression directly links to other freedoms like access to information and freedom of association and assembly.
“All these freedoms are under attack,” she said. And there’s no longer much room to challenge the restrictions.”
“You’re out of options of what to do. [Before] you could file a public interest litigation or speak to someone in parliament,” Aziz said, adding: “Not that [anything] happened because of that, but at least there was this dialogue — and now there’s no dialogue.”
Censorship has been slowly increasing, while Pakistanis have looked on in horror as they’ve felt unable to do anything to prevent it. First came the internet and mobile services shutdowns during election days and important events. Then in February of this year, X was banned, as the Interior Ministry claimed the platform was a “threat to peace and national security.”
Abbasi said that under the former PTI government, “the internet would be blocked in areas we call ‘peripheries’, such as Balochistan and Gilgit-Baltistan”. More recently, reports of internet bans in Kurram after problems with sectarian violence in November and in Pakistan-administered Kashmir during protests in May, show just how much the government relies on these bans as a form of control.
For now, rights advocates are losing hope of finding a way out, and many have told Index that things may only get worse from here.
