New Delhi (NVI): In yet another instance of human rights violation, Pakistani state agencies have been harassing old-aged parents of prominent exiled rights activist Gulalai Ismail in Marghuz village of Swabi district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan, while framing the whole family under terror financing and sedition charges.
The 35-year-old Pashtun human rights activist has said that the Peshawar police raided their village home in Swabi Marghuz where they brought her father, Mohammed Ismail (65), a retired professor from Government College Peshawar.
Gulalai Ismail’s father is already under arrest as he was denied bail by a Peshawar court on charges of terror financing and sedition.
“CTD-Police Peshawar raided our village home in Swabi Marghuz, they had brought my father as well. They had brought fabricated papers/receipts with them which they implanted in the files of our home. They snatched the phones from everyone before search,” Gulalai said in a series of tweets yesterday while sharing her mother’s video statement.
CTD-Police Peshawar raided our village home in Swabi Marghuz,they had brought my father as well. They had brought fabricated papers/receipts with them which they implanted in the files of our home. They snatched the phones from everyone before search. My mother’s video Statement: pic.twitter.com/OAKxFaq5QI
— Gulalai Ismail ګلالۍاسماعیل (@Gulalai_Ismail) February 4, 2021
The activist’s father was taken into custody in a long-standing case that also charges her and her mother since 2019. To avoid harassment by Pakistani security agencies, because of her investigations into human rights abuses by Pak soldiers, Gulalai fled to the US and sought asylum there, in 2019.
“The unruly state of Pakistan is using state machinery to implant fabricated evidence for framing my parents in terror financing after failing to prove in court their lame accusation against my parents. The int’l HR org & UN must take notice,” the human rights activist said in another tweet.
Before his arrest, on January 29 Prof Mohd Ismail had tweeted: “My dissident voice was categorized as “Objectionable”. Peshawar High Court warned me to avoid sharing ‘Objectionable’ Posts. Honoring the orders of the Court I hereby surrender my right to share my dissident voices on Social media, therefore Goodbye Facebook and Twitter.”
My dissident voice was categorized as “Objectionable”. Peshawar High Court warned me to avoid sharing “Objectionable” Posts. Honoring the orders of the Court I hereby surrender my right to share my dissident voices on Social media, therefore Goodbye Facebook and Twitter.
— Prof.M.Ismail (@ProfMIsmail) January 29, 2021
Gulalai Ismail, in another tweet, said that the family of Prof Ismail has decided to submit a petition to the UN working group on Arbitrary Detention.
“In this critical situation and increasing harassment of my parents, we the family of @ProfMIsmail, through International Human Rights Lawyer Kurtuluş BAŞTİMAR @Kbastimar36 have decided to submit a petition to the UN working group on Arbitrary Detention,” she tweeted.
“We’ll use every single platform to highlight the persecution of our father. This unnerving harassment has to come to an end. The criminalization of human rights activism&civic rights is not acceptable. Judicial harassment & use of state mechanisms for persecution are intolerable,” she said.
Several human rights activists and bodies have condemned the persecution and harassment of the activist’s elderly parents at the hands of Pakistani authorities.
“PTM USA strongly condemns the continued judicial & physical harassment of Pashtun human rights activist @Gulalai_Ismail ‘s elderly parents. We urge the Int’l community to intervene & force Pakistan to desist from its fascist tactics in suppressing dissident voices,” Pashtun Tahafuz Movement USA said in a tweet.
Another US based human rights body, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor has also expressed concerns over the harassment of Ismail family while urging Pakistan to uphold citizens’ rights.
“We are concerned by reports that authorities have again arrested Professor Muhammad Ismail. We are monitoring allegations of harassment against the Ismail family, and urge Pakistan to uphold citizens’ rights to peaceful assembly, expression, due process, and the rule of law,” read the tweet.
PTM leader Mohsin Dawar said that such blatant harassment is unacceptable. “The continued persecution of @Gulalai_Ismail’s parents exposes the fascistic tendencies of the state’s agencies. Such blatant harassment is unacceptable. We stand with Gulalai and her family,” he tweeted.
-ARK
