Maria Rashid ماریہ🇵🇸

The moment when your labour of love is laid bare for all to see. My book, an ethnography of the lives and deaths of soldiers from Chakwal is out today. Available as an e-book (on Kindle, Google Books) and as home delivery from retailers in Pakistan and beyond! Yikes!

Pls repost if you endorse the following statement prepared by civil society activists *Demanding Justice for Adv. Imaan Mazari Hazir and Adv. Hadi Ali Chattha* 24 April 2026: We, members of the Civil Society of Pakistan, stand in unwavering support and solidarity with renowned lawyers, Adv. Imaan Mazari Hazir and Adv. Hadi Ali Chattha. We strongly condemn the continued incarceration of both human rights lawyers. Despite urgent Petitions, 90 days have passed without court hearings or due process – after being unjustly sentenced to 17 years imprisonment and fines of Rs.36 million, following a sham trial – in violation of the Constitution, rule of law, fundamental human rights, and dignity of the legal profession. *Human Rights, Health, Financial, Legal Implications* Their imprisonment, including solitary confinement, has reached a critical threshold, with serious implications. *Constitutional Violations, Unjust Punishment:* Their 17-year sentences, with huge fines on trivial charges, violate Pakistan Constitution Articles 4, 9, and 10-A, guaranteeing dignity and security of the person, due process, and right to a fair trial. *Physical and Psychological Health:* Prolonged incarceration without due process imperils physical and psychological health, necessitating urgent medical intervention. The State’s imprisonment and separation of a married couple serves no purpose other than to inflict maximum emotional distress, violating their dignity and human rights. *Financial Strangulation:* Imposing excessive fines, the State is effectively stripping them of their ability to sustain themselves upon their eventual release after 17 years. *Silencing Voices of the Voiceless:* Both are renowned pillars as legal and human rights defenders – voices and bridges between the marginalized and the State. *Grassroots Activism:* Both are at the forefront of social justice activism: protests, press conferences, media advocacy, conveying the voices of the vulnerable. *Persecution of Rights Defenders:* Due to their brave work within the judicial system, a systematic strategy to crush the spirit of two young human rights defenders, legal professionals. *Defending the Defenceless:* Both specialize in defending victims of *enforced disappearances* and false *blasphemy* accusations, taking cases on _pro bono_ basis to ensure legal representation. *Breach of International Commitments:* UN Special Rapporteurs stated that charges of "cyber terrorism" are a blatant attempt to silence their professional work in Public Interest Litigation and human rights activism. Having ratified the ICCPR _(inter alia)_ Pakistan is thus in direct violation of its binding legal international commitments in this matter. *Demands* We call upon the Government of Pakistan and the Judiciary urgently to: 1. *Expedite Judicial Process:* We urge the judiciary to take up their Appeals and hear their cases on *merit*, releasing them on bail without further delay. *The State must not obstruct the swift dispensation of justice.* 2. *Withdraw Fabricated Charges:* The State must withdraw all "cyber terrorism" and "glorification of offense" charges under PECA 2016. 3. *Revoke Fine, Provide Compensation:* (a) Revocation of Rs.36 million fines; (b) Provision of relief and compensation for the physical and psychological trauma of their unjust incarceration. 4. *Comply with UN Obligations:* Ensure full compliance with the ICCPR and all recommendations of the UN Special Rapporteurs in this matter. *A Plea to the Legal Community* We commend the legal community for their strong Resolution (15 April 2026). We call upon Bar Associations and lawyers countrywide to also demonstrate solidarity and work jointly to obtain justice for their unjustly convicted, sentenced, imprisoned colleagues. *If defenders of the law are not safe from misuse of the law, then no citizen is safe.*

LMAO brilliant 😭😂🤣

The nuclear issue has always been an excuse to target Iran. Fact is Iran is a full party to the NPT - unlike North Korea which exited NPT - & its nuclear facilities are IAEA safeguarded. In fact as a result of the JCPOA Iran accepted additional IAEA safeguards also.

Today 72 days of illegal imprisonment 4 @ImaanZHazir & @AdvHadiali thru illegal conviction by judge Majoka & bec IHC CJ Dogar sitting on early hearing appeals. But our faith is strong & Allah will give us justice against all inflictors of injustice & vengeance-seekers. #ReleaseImaanAndHadi

Grateful 2 the misogynistic system that protects me&penalizes my victim.In my truimph over truth I can afford 2 be gracious& forgive all women who tried 2 come out with their truth.I look forward 2 using my privelege 2 harras women with no repercussions in future!

.@MahrangBaloch_ writes from solitary confinement,she should have been rewarded for leading Baloch women against enforced disappearances but she is banished to prison. “Even as I endure this, the greater pain is knowing my family is being relentlessly targeted for my political activism. My cousin Salal Baloch was forcibly disappeared. On 12 March this year, my 19-year-old cousin, Saifullah Baloch, was picked up and remains missing. My brother is on the fourth schedule – a watch list that imposes strict monitoring, travel bans, mandatory police reporting, and financial restrictions for up to three years – and is continually harassed by the counter-terrorism department. Whenever my sister speaks out in press conferences for our release, she is harassed, and has also been charged. These tactics are meant to break me and force me to abandon my political struggle. Our cases are heard inside the jail, usually on Saturdays when outsiders cannot attend. Phone calls are banned, despite the jail guidelines allowing two a week.

@hibasameen @AliHasanain @PBSofficialpak So cool!!!

Many weekends and a lot of blood, sweat and tears have gone into building an interactive district-level map of Pakistan's census and survey data. All open data from @PBSofficialpak. 🇵🇰 hibasameen.github.io/datadarbar/

in courts, BUT also on the streets, in the workplace and in the home. Whether her appeal against this judgement or her wins or not is irrelevant- men like @AliZafar will think twice before they take women's consent or their bodies lightly. @itsmeeshashafi you have won already!

Meesha has been decided before her own should tell you who the system sides with. If the judgement is meant to be a detterant, it has already failed. If anything the judgement is a confirmation of what women know already-That women MUST speak up-LOUDER and WITHOUT SHAME

"The court found that @itsmeeshashafi allegations of sexual harassment of a physical nature had not been proved to be true or shown to be made for the public good" Publicly calling out sexual harassers you is ALWAYS about public good, that is aljazeera.com/news/2026/4/1/…

Iraq in 1991 negotiated a ceasefire. Saddam Hussein pulled back from Kuwait. The stated objective of the coalition was achieved. The UN mandate was fulfilled. The war was over. Twelve years of the most comprehensive sanctions regime ever imposed on a country followed. Five hundred thousand Iraqi children died. Not from bombs. From the sanctions. From the inability to import medicine. From the destruction of water treatment infrastructure. From the systematic economic strangulation of a country that had agreed to the terms it was given. Madeleine Albright was asked in 1996 whether the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children were worth it. She said: "We think the price is worth it." On camera. With her name attached. Then in 2003, after twelve years of compliance with weapons inspection regimes, after twelve years of sanctions, after twelve years of no-fly zones enforced by American and British aircraft over sovereign Iraqi territory: They invaded anyway. There were no weapons of mass destruction. They knew there were no weapons of mass destruction. The sanctions had worked. The inspections had worked. The compliance had worked. They invaded anyway. Because the compliance was never the point. The compliance was the process by which Iraq was weakened enough to be finished. Negotiations. Compliance. Sanctions. Inspection regimes. Another decade of negotiations. Invasion. This is the sequence. This is what "negotiations" produced for Iraq. Half a million dead children as the price of the ceasefire. Two million dead as the price of the invasion. A country that has not recovered twenty years later. This is the table they invite you to.

Britain is 6% Muslim. Germany 5%. France 10%. Sweden 9%. Belgium 7%. At this rate of Islamic conquest, Europe will be majority Muslim sometime around the year 2847. I’d pencil in some mild concern for around 2600 and see how things look then. Now. The refugees. Since someone asked who’s paying for all this. Let’s follow the money back a bit further. America invaded Afghanistan, spent 20 years there achieving absolutely nothing, then left in such breathtaking chaos that people were literally hanging off aircraft. It then invaded Iraq over weapons that turned out not to exist, killed somewhere between 150,000 and a million people, and converted a functioning country into a sectarian hellscape. This is before we even get to the drones over Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan. The people washing up on European shores are, in very large part, the direct human wreckage of American foreign policy. America created the disaster. Europe is housing the survivors. And America is on the internet asking why Europe keeps letting people in. Remarkable cheek, really. As for eliminating indigenous culture: the United States actually eliminated its indigenous people. Deliberately. With rifles and government paperwork. Europe took in Syrian doctors. These are not comparable situations, and pretending they are requires a truly heroic indifference to history. The culture is fine. France still has the cheese. The Louvre is still there. Bach is still there. Nothing has been eliminated except, apparently, the ability to read a percentage.

‼️Bad Words (w/ @susanabulhawa)‼️ "I think we're the only people in the world, maybe in history, who are expected to experience our own genocide and then be expected to watch what we say so we don't offend the people who did this. So I resent that, & I reject it completely. Which is why I double & triple down. Because I do -- I think they're demons." patreon.com/posts/153406730

As more facts emerge about Pakistan's recent strikes in Kabul, I think the following can be said with a reasonable degree of certainty: 1- While the Taliban's initial claims may have been exaggerated, it seems increasingly evident that a massive number of civilians in a rehab facility did indeed die as a result of the strike on Camp Phoenix. Irrespective of your views on this conflict, this is a horrific tragedy that objectively deserves condemnation and investigation, notwithstanding the broader context of & reasons for the war. 2- From the publicly available evidence - the footage of the explosion & the satellite imagery - it seems that the strike wasn't deliberate and the actual target struck was likely an ammunition depot or drone facility in Camp Phoenix, the secondary explosions from which caused the destruction of the rehab facility located nearby inside the camp. There are certainly legitimate questions about the Taliban placing vulnerable individuals right next to a weapons dump inside a military camp during war but they do not absolve Pakistan of its responsibility to take every possible measure to ensure such massive risk to civilian life is avoided in the pursuit of military objectives. I understand & agree with those who think the Taliban & TTP's ideological & militant irredentism is the primary cause of the current conflict. Am under no illusions about the necessity of fighting ruthless militant groups mowing down Pakistanis on a daily basis, whose attacks I've also lost friends & family to. However, it is completely legitimate for people to ask whether regularly incurred human costs of this scale justify the current strategy (whatever people currently believe it is, everyone has a somewhat different idea). Massacres like these, even if unintentional, will inevitably & understandably dilute the moral justifications for prosecuting this battle. Beyond concerns about the conduct of war, such questions become even more critical in the context of the current state of political polarization in Pakistan. We are already a very long way away from the political & societal consensus needed to effectively fight multiple insurgencies amid spiralling regional chaos. In 2014, we at least devised something resembling a plan that everyone was on board with. Today, there's no pretense of even working towards one, and people are expected to just trust where this is going. Hope there can be some sober reflection on this crisis among decisionmakers over the Eid ceasefire. The government & military should substantively engage the broader political leadership in the country on the war & counter-insurgency. They should also seriously consider the recent mediation offers from China & Russia & involve neighbouring countries to work towards a long-term regionally-grounded settlement. Prayers to the families of all civilians who lost their lives in Kabul, as well as those whose loved ones died in this week's attacks in Pakistan. Hope we can bring this horrific bloodletting to an end soon.

🚨🚨 @ImaanZHazir & @AdvHadiali get dozens of blasphemy gang victims released from jails, dozens of enforced disappearances victims returned home because of their litigation and advocacy on roads/social media but today they are in jail, will have Eid in jail and no court nor anybody in the state is feeling ashamed! #ReleaseImaanAndHadi

A PhD scholar goes missing in Lahore. Days later, he surfaces in state custody, charged over social media posts under PECA. Now, he’s been denied bail twice. 🧵Thread.

So ache baleh music programme ko state project bana do! Pehle basant and now our newly found Bangla brothers (and sisters). Kyunke state apology ya reparation to hum se hona nahi aur solidarity with our south asian neighbours can only be dictated by ISPR/current geopolitics.