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In July 2025, Justice Project Pakistan filed an urgent petition before the District and Sessions Court Lahore for the release of Kanizan Bibi, a mentally ill prisoner who has spent over 35 years in custody despite completion of her sentence. Arrested in 1989 and sentenced to death, her case became central to the Supreme Court’s landmark Safia Bano judgment (PLD 2021 SC 488), which prohibited the execution of prisoners with severe mental illness and commuted her sentence to life imprisonment.
Now 52 years old and diagnosed with schizophrenia, Kanizan remains under institutional care at Punjab Institute of Mental Health (PIMH), Lahore. Having already served well beyond the settled term of a life sentence, her continued detention violates both domestic law and Pakistan’s international human rights obligations.
JPP’s legal team has petitioned for her immediate release, supported by recent medical assessments indicating her improved condition and fitness for reintegration into society. Her family, who continue to visit her regularly, have long awaited her return home. JPP remains committed to ensuring that Kanizan’s decades-long ordeal concludes with dignity, justice, and freedom.
From 1–10 August 2025, JPP marked Prisoners’ Justice Day with the national campaign Still Human, a call to remember those lost to systemic neglect and those still suffering inside Pakistan’s prisons.
The campaign ran across social media with daily posts and reels, exposing the inequality and injustice in Pakistan’s prisons, from overcrowding and neglect to the lack of legal aid, health care, and rehabilitation. Each story emphasized the simple truth: prisoners are still human, deserving of dignity and rights, not silence and abandonment.
The campaign culminated on 10 August with a live panel discussion and a vigil, bringing together voices from law, media, and civil society to ask what dignity in justice should look like. A hero video and solidarity actions across platforms amplified the message, reaching new audiences and sparking urgent conversations about prison reform.
Through Still Human, JPP reframed justice as a matter of basic humanity and renewed its call for equal protection, accountability, and reform within Pakistan’s criminal justice system.
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On 10 August 2025, Justice Project Pakistan held a solemn vigil to mark Prisoners’ Justice Day and conclude the Still Human campaign. The gathering brought together survivors, lawyers, and members of civil society to honour those who have suffered and died in prison due to systemic neglect and injustice.
Candles were lit and names were read aloud in remembrance of Aftab Bahadur, executed after 23 years on death row despite being only 15 at the time of arrest. We remembered Muhammad Anwar, who spent 28 years behind bars as a juvenile. We honoured Khizar Hayat, a mentally ill prisoner who died chained to a hospital bed, and Ghulam Abbas, who passed away in 2024 after decades on death row with untreated schizophrenia.
The vigil also featured powerful testimony from Muhammad Iqbal, a current JPP client who shared his lived experience of incarceration, and Khurram Waseem, a former prisoner who is now a dedicated prisoners’ rights activist. Their voices gave human shape to the statistics, exposing the daily injustices faced by those behind bars. The event closed with a dramatic reading of Aftab Bahadur’s story, leaving attendees with a deep sense of grief, solidarity, and a renewed commitment to justice.
This Prisoners’ Justice Day, we came together to remember those the system failed and to demand a future where dignity, accountability, and humanity are not denied to anyone.
