Islamabad: Pakistan’s recent sentencing of journalists on terrorism charges marks the latest development in government campaign to stifle criticism of the Pakistani military, with the US and other allies continue to public support Islamabad, despite its escalating crackdown on the country’s civil society and dissent, a report said on Tuesday.
“On January 2, an Islamabad anti-terrorism court in Pakistan sentenced a group of prominent journalists, social media commentators, and former military officers to life imprisonment in absentia for alleged “terrorism-related” online activities. The charges included expressing support for both the jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan, who is presently incarcerated on politicized corruption charges and has been subject to repeated stints in solitary confinement, and the nationwide protests from his supporters during the summer in 2023,” a report in ‘Drop Site News’ detailed.
“Those convicted include well-known journalists and commentators such as Moeed Pirzada, Adil Raja, Wajahat Saeed Khan, Sabir Shakir, Shaheen Sehbai, Haider Raza Mehdi, and retired Col. Akbar Hussain—all of whom have been given 80-year double life sentences in absentia. The court’s ruling, under broad anti-terror laws, said the defendants’ digital content “promoted fear and unrest” and “waged war against the state,” although most had never been served summonses or appeared before the court. The defendants had been given only seven days to appeal the decision,” it stated.
Speaking to Drop Site News, one of those sentenced to life, journalist Wajahat Saeed Khan, said, “he was never served summons, never informed that a lawyer had been appointed to represent him, and was explicitly barred from retaining counsel of his own unless he appeared in person—an impossibility given that he lives abroad”.
According to Khan, the Pakistani court-appointed attorney never reached out to him or any of the other accused. The court, he said, has not released a written judgment—circulated sentences only on social media—while allowing only a week to appeal without providing the official order needed to do so.
“They want us convicted without a judgment, without representation, and without the ability to appeal,” Drop Site News quoted Khan as saying.
He called the trial a predetermined “a mockery of justice,” accusing the judge of acting as “judge, jury, and executioner all at once.”
(IANS)
