Pakistan’s Anti-Terrorism Laws May Target Dissenters

The Jamestown Foundation | Andrea Serino

A Quetta Anti-Terrorism Court on 22 June convicted Mahrang Baloch, a prominent non-violent human rights activist, handing her a life sentence for terrorism and murder following 2024 clashes in Gwadar. The conviction occurred despite the court offering no direct evidence linking the leader of the Balochistan Yakjehti Committee to the fatal violence.

The ruling marks a pivotal tactical shift. Rather than relying solely on paramilitary force or enforced disappearances, Pakistani authorities are increasingly utilizing the Anti-Terrorism Act to criminalise political opposition. This judicial pattern extended to 47 members of Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, who received 10-year sentences from a Rawalpindi court in March. By weaponising counter-terrorism frameworks against civil movements, Islamabad risks further alienating the Baloch population while eroding constitutional norms. Ultimately, synthesis suggests these trials represent a systematic political strategy, leaving open whether judicial coercion will quell dissent or accelerate regional instability.

Comment

Pakistan's expanding reliance on the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1997 to prosecute political figures alters the functional scope of state counter-terrorism jurisprudence. By stretching statutory definitions of terrorism to encompass non-violent civil agitation, the Quetta Anti-Terrorism Court establishes a legal mechanism for neutralising political opposition without resorting to emergency decrees. This statutory reinterpretation shifts the burden of state coercion from Frontier Corps extrajudicial actions directly into the formal Pakistani judiciary.

Specifically, Section 6 of the Anti-Terrorism Act provides elastic language that allows prosecutors to classify public assembly and civil disobedience as actions destabilising state security. Utilizing special Anti-Terrorism Courts to try civilian actors like Mahrang Baloch strips defendants of standard constitutional protections guaranteed under Article 10A of the Pakistani Constitution. This structural shift formalises the Rawalpindi and Quetta Anti-Terrorism Courts as primary operational instruments of internal security management.

Strategic Question for Discussion

If Pakistan's judiciary continues to apply Section 6 of the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1997 against non-violent civil movements, what does this institutional shift reveal about the future balance between civilian constitutional rights and executive security mandates?

The trajectory indicates that expanding Section 6 prosecutions effectively institutionalises emergency-style security authority within standard judicial proceedings. While this approach allows the state to bypass extrajudicial controversy, the available evidence points toward severe long-term institutional friction as conventional courts become key arenas for political conflict. My assessment is that this mechanism will erode judicial credibility faster than it suppresses grassroots political agitation.

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