Pakistani court acquits parents of activist in treason case

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — A defense lawyer says a court in northwest Pakistan has acquitted the parents of an exiled female human rights activist three years after the couple was arrested on charges of terror financing and sedition. The 2019 arrests of the activist Gulalai Ismail’s parents, Mohammad  Ismail and Uzlifat Ismail, had drawn widespread condemnation. On Wednesday, an anti-terrorism court threw out the charges against the couple. Mohammad Ismail is a teacher and a social activist. His daughter fled to the U.S. in 2019 and sought asylum there to avoid harassment by security agencies over her investigations into alleged human rights abuses by soldiers.