Pakistan: judicial harassment against HRD continues after his abduction (Update)
Event- Country
- Pakistan
- Initial Date
- Feb 1, 2021
- Event Description
On 1 February 2020, the Peshawar High Court dismissed human rights defender Idris Khattak's petition challenging the jurisdiction of the Field General Court-Martial on his case. The verdict means that the human rights defender’s trial, which was paused in the Military Court, will now resume. While Pakistan is a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the military courts have not met their obligations under ICCPR, with the right to a public hearing not guaranteed, the death penalty being handed out after unfair trials and the absence of right to appeal to civilian courts.
The human rights defender was forcibly disappeared on 13 November 2019. His whereabouts were not known until 17 June 2020, when the Joint Investigation Tribunal in Islamabad, tasked with inquiring into cases of enforced disappearance, informed the human rights defender’s family that he was being held by the Pakistan Military Intelligence and was being tried under the Official Secrets Act, 1923.
- Impact of Event
- 1
- Gender of HRD
- Man
- Violation
- Denial Fair Trial
- Judicial Harassment
- Rights Concerned
- Right to fair trial
- HRD
- Community-based HRD
- Perpetrator-State
- Judiciary
- Source
- Monitoring Status
- Pending
- Event Location
Latitude: 34.01130180204597
Longitude: 71.57649003819759
- Event Location
- Summary for Publications
On 1 February 2021, Idris Khattak, detained community-based defender, was rejected the petition questioning the jurisdiction of the Military Court over the false charges he is facing after being abducted by the intelligence in 2020, by the High Court of Peshawar, Pakistan.
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