Pakistan’s Supreme Court suspends Mazari and Chattha’s sentences — Dawn
Pakistan’s Supreme Court has suspended the execution of the sentences handed down to human rights lawyer Imaan Zainab Mazari-Hazir and her husband, Hadi Ali Chattha, in a case concerning social media posts. The court ordered their release on bail pending a final ruling by the Islamabad High Court, Dawn reports.
A two-judge bench comprising Naeem Akhtar Afghan and Ishtiaq Ibrahim heard the couple’s appeals against the Islamabad High Court’s February refusal to suspend their sentences. The Supreme Court ordered their release on bail with surety bonds of 200,000 Pakistani rupees.
Sentence in the posts case
On January 24, a sessions court in Islamabad sentenced Mazari and Chattha to a total of 17 years in prison under several provisions of the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act. The punishment included 10 years in prison for cyberterrorism, five years for glorification of an offence, and two years for spreading false information.
The proceedings began with a complaint filed on August 12, 2025, by an assistant director of investigations at the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency in Islamabad with the Cyber Crime Reporting Centre of the Federal Investigation Agency. The complaint accused Mazari of spreading narratives that, according to investigators, aligned with the positions of hostile terrorist groups and banned organizations. Her husband was accused of reposting some of these posts.
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Course of the hearings
The first information report materials alleged that the couple held security forces responsible for cases of enforced disappearances in the provinces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan. They were also said to have portrayed the armed forces as ineffective in countering banned groups, including the Balochistan Liberation Army and Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan.
The couple’s lawyer, Faisal Siddiqui, said that the Islamabad High Court had repeatedly postponed consideration of the application to suspend the sentences. According to him, on May 12 the Supreme Court asked for the matter to be considered as soon as possible, preferably within two weeks. Additional Attorney General Rana Asadullah Khan noted that the High Court had not yet issued a decision adverse to the applicants.
Mazari and Chattha had been in custody since January 23 after being arrested in another case related to a protest outside the Islamabad High Court and the alleged use of force against the president of that court’s bar association.
