Friday Focus| The Mala-fide NAB Ordinance, Corruption and Political Victimisation| Gul Bukhari, Annie Zaman, Gulalai Ismail

In this podcast, we talked about the new trend of court-martials of civilians in the military courts of Pakistan and the issue of enforced disappearanes.

On 13 November 2019, human rights defender Idris Khattak was forcibly disappeared in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa by an unidentified group. For nearly seven months there was no information regarding his fate or whereabouts, until 16 June 2020, when it was revealed that the defender was in the custody of the Pakistan military. A year since his enforced disappearance, the defender continues to be detained incommunicado in an unknown location and is the subject of a military trial under the Official Secrets Act. To date, there is no information shared on the place of detention, and he is denied access to independent legal counsel for the ongoing trial. The treatment of Idris Khattak, is in direct violation of fundamental human rights norms and due process rights, recognized nationally and espoused internationally by the State of Pakistan.

Idris Khattak is a human rights defender whose work includes documenting and advocating against human rights violations in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. He has been at the forefront of the human rights movement in the region and has been particularly outspoken on issues minority rights and freedoms.

In the second segment of the Episode we talked about the persecution of the parents of PTM leader Gulalai Ismail for human rights activism, which is unprecedented example of transnational repression of a Pakistani citizen in exile.