By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: Two of Pakistan’s most prominent human rights lawyers, currently languishing in prison after being sentenced to a combined 17 years under the country’s sweeping cybercrime laws, have been awarded the world’s oldest and most prestigious legal human rights honour — the Ludovic Trarieux International Human Rights Prize.
Imaan Zainab Mazari-Hazir and her husband Hadi Ali Chattha, who have been in custody since their arrest in January, received the award at a ceremony in Rome held at the Parlamentino Hall of the National Bar Council — a gathering that underscored the growing international alarm over the treatment of lawyers and civil society figures in Pakistan.
The prize, established in memory of French lawyer Ludovic Trarieux — who founded the League for the Defence of Human and Citizen Rights in 1898 — has been awarded annually since 1985, when its inaugural recipient was Nelson Mandela, then imprisoned under South Africa’s apartheid regime. The parallel was not lost on observers.
According to an official statement issued by the Forensic Union for the Protection of Human Rights (UFDU), which administers the prize, the award recognises “a lawyer who, through his or her professional commitment, has made an extraordinary contribution to the defence of human rights, the rule of law, and the fight against racism and all forms of intolerance.”
The jury cited the couple’s shared career defending those at the sharpest edges of Pakistan’s legal system: victims of enforced disappearances, individuals facing blasphemy charges, journalists, activists, and those on death row. Mazari, specifically, was recognised for providing legal assistance to victims of violence and persecution, and for supporting vulnerable religious and ethnic communities. Chattha’s record includes representation of those accused of blasphemy and survivors of sexual violence, as well as advocacy on behalf of the forcibly disappeared.
“By awarding the 2026 Ludovic Trarieux International Human Rights Prize,” the jury’s statement read, “the jury recognised the professional and personal contributions of Imaan Mazari and Hadi Ali Chattha in upholding the rule of law, fundamental freedoms, and access to justice” — work carried out, the statement noted, against a backdrop of “growing pressure on lawyers and human rights defenders in Pakistan” according to international organisations and observers.
“Imaan Mazari and Hadi Ali Chattha have shared a long-standing professional commitment to defending fundamental freedoms, representing journalists, activists, victims of enforced disappearances, and individuals prosecuted for blasphemy charges”
The award ceremony was attended by Antonino Galletti, Coordinator of the European and International Law Commission at the National Bar Council. The prize for Bar of the Year 2026 was awarded separately to the South Sudan Bar Association.
Mazari’s mother, the former federal minister and activist Shireen Mazari, described the honour as an “immense professional honour” in a post on X, expressing gratitude for the international recognition of her daughter’s work.
The circumstances of the couple’s imprisonment have attracted fierce criticism both domestically and abroad. Mazari and Chattha were arrested in January following a protest outside the Islamabad High Court (IHC), in which they were accused of manhandling the president of the IHC Bar Association. But it was a separate, and far more consequential, legal proceeding — rooted in Pakistan’s Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act 2016 (PECA) — that would result in their imprisonment.
The cybercrime case originated with a complaint filed on 12 August 2025, by an official at the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency (NCCIA). The complaint alleged that Mazari had disseminated content “propagating narratives that align with hostile terrorist groups and proscribed organisations.” Chattha was implicated for reposting some of his wife’s social media posts.
In January, a sessions court sentenced the pair to a total of 17 years: ten years under Section 10 of PECA for cyber terrorism, five years under Section 9 for glorification of an offence, and a further two years under Section 26-A for spreading false and fake information. The sentence was handed down just one day after their initial arrest in the protest case — a timeline that drew immediate condemnation from rights organisations, legal bodies, politicians, and journalists, who raised concerns over due process.
Both separately filed appeals against their convictions at the IHC on 7 February. Then, on 30 April, the couple moved a further petition to the Supreme Court, seeking expedited hearings of those appeals. As of this week, neither appeal has been resolved — leaving Pakistan’s newest recipients of international human rights recognition confined to prison cells.
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