Islamabad, Pakistan – A prominent Pakistani lawyer and rights activist has been rearrested, hours after a court granted her bail in a sedition case.
Police in capital Islamabad arrested Imaan Mazari-Hazir on Monday after an antiterrorism court ordered her release from Adiala jail in Punjab province.
Mazari-Hazir’s lawyer told Al Jazeera the police have filed another case against her but they alleged the details were not shared with them.
“We asked the police officials to provide us with the first information report [FIR], but they refused to furnish it to us,” lawyer Zainab Janjua told Al Jazeera.
Islamabad Police arrested @ImaanZHazir again, outside Adiala Jail after ATC granted bail this morning, can be seen here taking her in a Police van based on an FIR filed in Bara Kahu. FIR still not shared with her lawyers present there. #ReleaseImaanMazari pic.twitter.com/uaX6QslLLh
— Usama Khilji (@UsamaKhilji) August 28, 2023
Mazari-Hazir, 30, was arrested on August 20, a day after former parliamentarian and Pashtun activist Ali Wazir was picked up by the police.
The two had addressed a public rally in Islamabad on August 18 where they criticised the country’s powerful military over enforced disappearances.
The rally was organised by the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM), a rights organisation that advocates for the rights of ethnic Pashtuns affected by Pakistan’s war against the Taliban and its affiliate, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), in the northwest.
The military campaign saw hundreds of cases of enforced disappearances and alleged extrajudicial killings of the Pashtuns, an impoverished and marginalised community mostly based in South Waziristan.
Nearly half a million Pashtuns were forced to flee the region due to the conflict.
Meanwhile, Wazir, who was also granted bail along with Mazari-Hazir, remains in custody, with officials saying he is likely to be presented before the court in another case.
In her speech at the PTM rally, Mazari-Hazir had allegedly said the “real terrorists are sitting in GHQ [Pakistan’s military headquarters]”.
Wazir was accused of inciting the crowd against state institutions, including the army, and making proclamations that could lead to civil war and civil disobedience.
After videos of their speeches went viral on social media, the two were accused of sedition and incitement to violence and taken into custody.
Mazari-Hazir is the daughter of Shireen Mazari, a prominent politician who was a member of the cabinet of former Prime Minister Imran Khan.
Khan, currently serving a three-year jail sentence on corruption charges, also accuses the military of a conspiracy to topple him last year and the subsequent crackdown on his party.
