tarzan of the flowerpot 🇵🇸

Today, I went to the Lahore High Court to cover the hearing of Junaid Hafeez’s appeal and after years of waiting, there was finally a substantive hearing of the case in Lahore. The court admitted the appeal and issued notices to the prosecution, asking it to address two important questions at the next hearing: the legal distinction between a Facebook page and a Facebook group, and the forensic basis for the social media posts attributed to Hafeez. The next date has yet to be fixed. But beyond the courtroom proceedings, what stayed with me was seeing Junaid’s father and brother there. His father was in tears after the hearing. For a family that has spent more than 13 years living with this case, the wait for justice has come at an enormous human cost. Junaid has remained imprisoned since his arrest in 2013 and has been on death row since his conviction in 2019. His appeal was filed in 2020. There were also people from civil society present in court in solidarity, a reminder that this case is being watched not only as a legal proceeding, but also through the lens of due process, the right to a fair and timely hearing, and the safety of everyone involved in such cases. Today’s hearing did bring some hope. But it also raised an uncomfortable question about the years that have already passed. The judges noted that notices to the parties had not been issued after the case was transferred to Lahore, and questioned why the appeal had not been properly pursued for an early hearing despite its age. For Junaid’s family, however, this is not simply an old case on a court file. It is more than 13 years of a life interrupted and years of waiting for the judicial process to reach its conclusion. The hope outside the courtroom today was simple: that the case will now move forward, the evidence will be examined, and justice will ultimately prevail.