By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: A prominent human rights lawyer and her husband, facing charges of inciting linguistic divisions and maligning the armed forces through social media posts, asked a court in Islamabad on Wednesday to summon the military’s top public relations official as a witness, citing a recent press conference that they said directly touched on their case.
The request by the lawyer, Imaan Zainab Mazari-Hazir, and her husband, Hadi Ali Chattha, came during a hearing in an Islamabad court on charges brought under the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act of 2016. The couple stands accused of using online platforms to foster divisions along linguistic lines and to suggest that Pakistan’s armed forces were involved in acts of terrorism within the country.
In a written application submitted to Additional District and Sessions Judge Muhammad Afzal Majoka, Mazari-Hazir and Chattha pointed to a Jan. 6 press conference by the director general of the Inter-Services Public Relations, the military’s media arm. The briefing, they said, was aired across national media outlets and remains accessible online. During the conference, the application stated, “references were made to matters directly pending trial before this learned court.” “This is the exact prosecution case that is pending adjudication before this learned court,” the application added.
The couple argued that calling the military spokesman was essential to ensure fairness. Their request, they contended, was a “clear requisite of natural justice in line with the Constitutional protection safeguarded for the accused persons with respect to the right to fair trial and due process.”
Judge Majoka instructed that a copy of the application be given to the prosecution and said he would rule on it after hearing from prosecutors. He later clarified that a decision would come only after the defendants’ statements were recorded under Section 342 of the Criminal Procedure Code, a step that allows accused individuals to respond to the evidence against them.
The hearing also included cross-examination of a prosecution witness, Shahroz Riaz, who acknowledged several points about how the investigation began and how social media material was gathered. The proceedings were adjourned until Jan. 8.
The case against Mazari-Hazir, a vocal advocate for civil liberties, and Chattha was started on a complaint lodged on Aug. 12, 2025, with the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency in Islamabad. The complaint charged Mazari-Hazir with spreading and “propagating narratives that align with hostile terrorist groups and proscribed organisations.” Chattha was accused of amplifying some of her posts by reposting them. According to the first information report, the couple had blamed security forces for enforced disappearances in the provinces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan. It further alleged that they depicted the armed forces as incapable of confronting banned militant outfits, including the Balochistan Liberation Army and the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan.
The pair was formally indicted in October 2025.The charges highlight the growing scrutiny of online speech in Pakistan, where laws like the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act have been used to target critics of the military and government. Mazari-Hazir, daughter of a former human rights minister, has long campaigned against what she describes as abuses by state institutions, including in cases involving missing persons.
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