An Islamabad district and sessions court on Thursday turned down the pleas of former Prime Minister Imran Khan and his wife, Bushra Bibi, to suspend their seven-year sentences in the Iddat case. Additional district and sessions judge (ADSJ) Afzal Majoka announced the verdict, which had been reserved on Tuesday.
On February 3, days before the general elections, an Islamabad court sentenced the couple to seven years in jail and imposed a fine of Rs500,000 each for contracting marriage during Bushra Bibi’s Iddat period. This verdict came in the same week the couple received 14-year sentences in the Toshakhana case, and Imran Khan along with his foreign minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, received a 10-year sentence in the cipher case.
While the Toshakhana case sentences were suspended in April, and Imran Khan and Qureshi were acquitted in the cipher case earlier this month, the Iddat conviction has been widely criticized by civil society, women activists, and lawyers. Critics have labeled it a “blow to women’s right to dignity and privacy,” prompting protests in Islamabad and Karachi against what they perceive as state intrusion into private lives.