Human rights lawyers Imaan Zainab Mazari and her husband, Hadi Ali Chattha, were rearrested on Thursday in a separate case hours after the Supreme Court suspended their 17-year prison sentences and ordered their release on bail.
Shireen Mazari, Imaan Mazari’s mother and a former human rights minister, said the couple had not yet left Adiala Jail when police took them into custody.
“They actually took them from inside Adiala because we had not yet gone to get them released as paper work was not complete!” she wrote on X.
Islamabad police arrested the couple in connection with a case registered at Kohsar police station and later produced them before an anti-terrorism court. The court rejected a police request for 30 days of physical remand and sent both to jail on judicial remand.
Earlier on Thursday, a two-member Supreme Court bench comprising Justice Naeem Akhtar Afghan and Justice Ishtiaq Ibrahim suspended their sentences in a case involving social media posts and granted them bail against surety bonds of 200,000 rupees each.
The order will remain in effect until the Islamabad High Court rules on their applications seeking suspension of the sentences.
Mazari and Chattha were convicted in January under Pakistan’s cybercrime law on charges related to social media posts authorities described as “anti-state” and sentenced to 17 years in prison.
The prosecution accused them of using social media to “incite linguistic divisions” and portray Pakistan’s armed forces as being “engaged in terrorism” inside the country.
Mazari, a prominent critic of Pakistan’s military, has represented journalists, ethnic minorities and families of victims of alleged enforced disappearances.
Human rights groups have criticised the prosecution, saying the couple were targeted over their advocacy and criticism of alleged abuses, particularly in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
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