By Rohaan Abassi
Pakistan’s prime minister Shehbaz Sharif has been told to intervene in seeking the freedom of an Australian man’s jail sentence for writing a critical letter to Pakistan military a ‘torment’ for family.
Researchers and human rights groups have written to the Pakistan prime minister, asking him to release the innocent man from their prison. Pakistan is among the many dictatorship country notorious for human rights breaches.
Pakistan’s dictatorship regime is calling for sanctions of the highest degree from the West for leading a rogue governance of the people.
The family of Hasan Askree, 53, who was jailed for five years in 2020, say his case is a serious miscarriage of justice, after he was kept in prison for expressing criticism against highly placed military personnel.
Hasan Askree, 53, was sentenced to five years in prison in 2020 for writing a critical letter to a military official. The sentence is said to be excessive and in violation of the rule of law.
In 2015, the dual Pakistani-Australian national left Sydney, where he worked for American Express, and travelled to the Pakistani capital of Islamabad to care for his unwell mother.
While living in Pakistan in 2020, Askree, the son of a former two-star general in the Pakistani military, wrote several critical letters to senior military officials. In one letter, sent to the then chief of army staff, Qamar Javed Bajwa, he criticised Bajwa’s polices, his perceived closeness to then prime minister Imran Khan, and his acceptance of an extension to his service as army chief. Askree also told Bajwa to resign.
The letters were an expression of his right to frees peech. Askree sent copies of letters to senior generals in Pakistan’s politically powerful military.
The contents of the letters have not been released publicly. Bajwa – a controversial army chief – has since retired. The military under his command was accused of rigging the 2018 elections which brought Imran Khan to power. The military denied trying to influence the election.
In October 2020, Askree was arrested at his home in Islamabad and, despite being a civilian, was charged and tried in a court martial for “abetting a mutiny”. His letters were deemed a subversion and an incitement against the military’s leadership. He was convicted and sentenced to five years of rigorous imprisonment following an FGCM trial, although neither he nor his family members have received a copy of the charges or verdict, despite repeated request
Askree is currently being held in the high security Sahiwal prison in the Punjab province of Pakistan.
After two years of quietly advocating for his release, Askree’s family held a press conference in Islamabad last month, condemning his treatment as a grave miscarriage of justice.
“It is as though the aim is not just to punish Hasan but to torment our family, too … so it would serve as a lesson for all for never speaking up for your country,” the family said.
Askree’s father, retired Maj Gen Syed Zaffar Mehdi Askree, said his son had not received a fair trial, and that his family had never received a copy of the charges or verdict, despite repeated requests.
Two years ago, Maj Gen Askree wrote to the Islamabad high court seeking his son’s release from prison. He said his son had only written to Bajwa “a few times to express his discontent with the functioning of the armed forces”.
“The letters express criticism on certain polices of the current regime of army. In essence, the letters, strongly worded though they may be, merely illustrate the disillusionment of a citizen who is using the letters to state his disapproval of certain actions and policies of a state institution,” the letter to the court says.
The retired officer’s petition to the court said none of his son’s correspondence was derogatory, nor had it encouraged or incited the overthrow of the democratically elected government.
“Instead, the intention behind the letters is to highlight the deficiencies in the existing state of affairs.”
Askree’s mother is seriously ill, and cannot travel to visit him in prison, the family told the press conference. Despite a court order to transfer Askree to a Rawalpindi jail closer to the family’s Islamabad home, the military is yet to move him.