Pakistan rights activist says father abducted outside court

PESHAWAR, Pakistan – A Pakistani human rights activist who recently fled the country to avoid harassment by security agencies says her father has been abducted by unidentified men.

In a tweet Thursday, Gulalai Ismail said Mohammad Ismail was picked up outside a courthouse in the northwestern city of Peshawar.

Her father’s lawyer Fazal Khan confirmed the incident, saying he saw men in plainclothes detain his client after a case relating to an NGO known as “Aware Girls.”

Gulalai Ismail recently went into hiding, then surfaced last month in the U.S. seeking asylum.

Human rights activists in Pakistan are often arrested on suspicion of links with so-called anti-state elements.

Gulalai Ismail’s parents are facing charges of financing terrorism, which they deny. The family supports a rights movement critical of the army’s war on terror.