Just hours after the Supreme Court of Pakistan ordered their release by suspending their 17-year prison sentences, prominent human rights lawyer Iman Zainab Mazari-Hazir and her husband, Advocate Hadi Ali Chattha, were taken back into custody outside Adiala Jail.
Earlier on Thursday, a two-member Supreme Court bench—comprising Justice Naeem Akhtar Afghan and Justice Ishtiaq Ibrahim—had accepted the petitions to suspend the sentences of Iman Mazari and Hadi Ali Chattha. The court ordered their release on bail, subject to the submission of surety bonds worth Rs 200,000 each, pending the Islamabad High Court’s final verdict.
Iman Mazari’s counsel, Faisal Siddiqui, had argued—while presenting Islamabad High Court order sheets—that there were persistent delays in the High Court regarding the petitions to suspend the sentences. It is pertinent to note that both individuals had been handed severe 17-year prison terms in January 2026 under the PECA law in connection with social media posts and had been incarcerated for the past eight months.
Immediately after the court’s release order was issued and they were released from Adiala Jail, Rawalpindi, an Islamabad Police team (led by the SP City) waiting outside took both of them back into custody and departed for an undisclosed location. No official details regarding the reasons for this sudden arrest or any new cases have been provided by the police.
For a long time, Iman Mazari and Hadi Ali Chattha have been fighting cases—pro bono—on behalf of victims of enforced disappearances, Baloch families, and impoverished street vendors. International rights organizations, including Amnesty International, had expressed deep concern over his continued detention. His re-arrest at the very gates of the prison, despite clear orders from the Supreme Court, is being viewed as a major question mark over the rule of law and the judicial system.
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