ISLAMABAD: A day before the hearing in the controversial tweets case involving lawyers Imaan Mazari-Hazir and Hadi Ali Chattha, leaders of the Islamabad Bar Council, Islamabad High Court Bar Association and Islamabad District Bar Association on Wednesday demanded the immediate implementation of a Supreme Court order concerning the suspension of the couple’s sentences in the PECA case.
Speaking at a joint press conference, Islamabad Bar Council member Advocate Aleem Abbasi said Mazari and Chattha were members of the bar and their trial had been conducted in haste.
“Iman Mazari and Hadi Ali Chattha are members of our bar,” Abbasi said, alleging that their trial was conducted hastily.
He said appeals against their convictions had been filed before the Islamabad High Court, but “delaying tactics” were used in the hearing of the appeals.
According to Abbasi, the matter was subsequently taken to the Supreme Court for the hearing of the applications seeking suspension of their sentences. He said the Supreme Court had directed the Islamabad High Court to decide the sentence-suspension applications within two weeks.
“Four months have passed, but the Supreme Court’s decision is still not being implemented,” Abbasi said.
He stressed that every accused or convicted person was entitled to a fair trial, regardless of the nature of the alleged offence.
“Whatever the offence may be, every accused or convicted person has the right to a fair trial,” he said. “We are only demanding that the rights guaranteed by the Constitution be provided.”
Abbasi said another hearing of the petition was scheduled before the Supreme Court on Thursday and called for an immediate decision on the matter.
“Our demand is that the petition should be decided immediately,” he said, warning that failure to implement the Supreme Court’s decision would create “chaos”.
“The system is being exposed,” Abbasi said. He also referred to the lawyers’ opposition to the constitutional amendment, saying they had warned at the time that it would affect the judiciary.
“We can only speak; we cannot stage a sit-in on Constitution Avenue,” he said.
‘Controversial’ tweet case
The case against human rights lawyer Imaan Mazari and her husband, lawyer Hadi Ali Chattha, stems from a complaint filed by the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency (NCCIA) in Islamabad on Aug. 12, 2025 under the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (PECA). According to the FIR, Imaan was accused of disseminating and “propagating narratives that align with hostile terrorist groups and proscribed organisations”, while Hadi was implicated for reposting some of her posts.
The allegations included holding security forces responsible for cases of missing persons in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan and portraying the armed forces as ineffective against proscribed groups, including Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) and Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
On January 24, 2026, an Islamabad sessions court sentenced Imaan and Hadi to a combined 17 years in prison on multiple PECA charges. The convictions drew condemnation from sections of the legal community and UN experts. The couple challenged their convictions before the Islamabad High Court (IHC) on February 7. On July 25, the IHC declared their petitions seeking suspension of their sentences admissible after rejecting a prosecution objection that the pleas were premature.
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