Idris Khattak

Idris Khattak is a Pakistani human rights activist. In early December 2021 a military court sentenced Khattak to 14 years in prison for espionage.

Life

Idris Khattak was born in December 1963. He had previously worked for Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch on a wide range of topics including people illegally disappeared by the military. He holds a PhD in anthropology from Saint Petersburg.

Khattak has two daughters, Shumaisa and Talia.

Khattak was abducted by four individuals on the Swabi motorway interchange in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on 13 November 2019.

He was kept in solitary confinement since November 2019 by military intelligence in Pakistan, although in February 2021 Amnesty International reported the Peshawar High Court had denied Khattak's appeal to be tried in a civilian court and that his hearing would instead take place in a military court.

He was sentenced to 14 years imprisonment in a secret military court trial in late-2021, not being allowed to defend his case. Human Rights Watch condemned the sentencing, saying that "Pakistan's security forces have with impunity long carried out enforced disappearances" and calling for him to tried publicly in a civilian court. Amnesty International called the sentencing "the culmination of a shameful two-year process that has been unjust from start to finish" and saying that "enforced disappearances must, once and for all, be put to an end."