Amnesty International has called on the Sindh authorities to immediately release activist and former member of the National Assembly Ali Wazir and drop all charges against him, saying he remains in detention despite being acquitted by a sessions court in Dadu, Sindh, on 21 October.

Wazir, a Pashtun activist, has been held in pretrial detention since 4 August 2024. He was released on 16 March 2026, only to be re-arrested the same day. Amnesty says he remains in detention because of other cases pending against him, and that the authorities continue to file new charges.

A cycle of release and re-arrest

Amnesty documented the pattern in an urgent action in April, recording that Wazir was freed from Sukkur Central Prison on 16 March after the Sindh High Court in Hyderabad granted him bail, and was re-arrested within hours on fresh anti-terrorism charges. He has since been held in District Jail Dadu, with further cases registered in Dadu and Jamshoro.

On 10 March 2026, the Sindh High Court in Hyderabad granted Wazir bail in the final pending case before it, ruling there was no incriminating evidence against him and no lawful basis to continue depriving him of his liberty.

More than a dozen cases since 2024

Since August 2024, Wazir has been held in custody in more than a dozen cases in Islamabad, Punjab, Balochistan and Sindh, according to Amnesty. The organisation says the cases appear intended to silence his activism on extrajudicial executions, enforced disappearances, and discrimination against the ethnic Pashtun minority.

The Inter-Parliamentary Union has also examined his case, documenting repeated arrests and new charges filed each time he was granted bail. Amnesty says Wazir is being targeted for his peaceful activism and must be freed. Read Amnesty's statement here and its earlier urgent action here.