Pakistan: Ongoing harassment against Ms. Gulalai Ismail and her relatives

The Observatory has been informed by reliable sources about the ongoing judicial harassment against Ms. Gulalai Ismail and about threats and harassment against her relatives. Ms. Ismail, an ethnic Pashtun and woman rights defender, is the founder of the Youth Peace Network and co-founder and Chairperson of the Aware Girls NGO, an organisation aiming at strengthening the leadership of young people, especially women and girls, enabling them to act as agents of change for women empowerment and peace building. Ms. Ismail has led a campaign against extrajudicial killings in Pakistan and was awarded the 2017 Anna Politkovskaya Award by ’the organization Reach all Women in War (RAW).

According to the information received, Ms. Gulalai Ismail was forced into hiding after facing charges of “defamation” (Section 500 of the Penal Code), “sedition” (Section 124-A of the Penal Code), “promoting enmity between different groups” (Section 153-A of the Penal Code) and other charges under Section 6/7 of Pakistan’s Anti-Terrorism Act. The charges stemmed from a speech she gave at a rally in Islamabad, in which she called for justice in the case of a 10-year-old girl who was raped and murdered in May 2019 and denounced the authorities’ inaction to bring the perpetrator(s) to justice [1].

Moreover, Ms. Ismail’s relatives have faced repeated acts of harassment and intimidation by security forces since two First Information Reports (FIRs) were filed against her by the police in Islamabad on May 22 and 23, 2019. For instance, on May 24 at dawn, the police raided her family home in Islamabad and threatened her family members. The family’s residence was again raided on May 27 and June 4. Again, on July 4, 2019, a large group of men in civilian clothes raided Ms. Ismail’s house in Islamabad three times and threatened to harm Ms. Ismail’s younger sister if the former did not cease her work as an activist. Security forces also took away the family’s driver, interrogated him, and subjected him to physical acts of ill-treatment. According to the information received, toxins were allegedly injected into his body, he was punched in the head, and he was beaten with a pistol. Furthermore, he was threatened with his children being killed. The driver was released eight hours later.

Moreover, on July 12, 2019, a FIR was lodged against Ms. Ismail and her parents by the Counter-Terrorism Department in Peshawar, accusing them of having received “financial support from terrorist organizations”.

The Observatory condemns the ongoing harassment against Ms. Gulalai Ismail and her relatives, and calls upon the Pakistani authorities to put an immediate end to these acts of harassment, which seem to be aimed to punish Ms. Ismail for her human rights work.

The Observatory recalls that this is not the first time that Ms. Ismail faces judicial harassment because of her human rights activities. Since October 2018, she has been placed on Pakistan’s Exit Control List and prevented from leaving the country. Moreover, on February 5, 2019, Ms. Ismail and other Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM) [2] members were arrested outside the National Press Club in Islamabad while they were taking part in a protest to denounce the killing of Mr. Ibrahim Arman Loni, a teacher and PTMcore committee member in Baluchistan Province. Ms. Ismail was first taken to G9 Women’s Police Station in Islamabad before being moved to an unknown location, until her release on February 6, 2019 [3].