On 16 March, Ali Wazir, human rights defender and former opposition member of Pakistan’s National Assembly, was arrested and detained under anti-terrorism charges in Hyderabad, Pakistan. This followed his release from detention earlier that day, having been granted bail by a bench of the Sindh High Court for another case. Since then, two additional cases have been filed against him. Since 2020, Ali Wazir has faced multiple arrests and has been charged in dozens of trumped-up cases intended to keep him in detention and silence him and his activism related to issues of extrajudicial executions, enforced disappearances, and discrimination and violence against the ethnic Pashtun minority. Ali Wazir’s 20-month detention and multiple cases filed against him speak to the unlawful and arbitrary tactics being deployed to silence him. Amnesty International urges the Pakistani authorities to immediately release Ali Wazir.
