Film director Jamsheed Mahmood Raza or also known as Jami, has received bail from the Sindh High Court after appealing the two-year jail sentence for alleged defamation of another film director.
According to Dunya News, Jami’s petition argued that the court had placed the burden of proof over the accused when the prosecution had failed to provide evidence to support their claims. The filmmakers lawyers had also stated that the evidence presented by the prosecution was baseless and unreliable. The petition urged the Sindh High Court to overturn the conviction and suspend the sentencing.
On Wednesday morning, Jami was sentenced to a two-year jail sentence and a fine of Rs 10,000 for allegedly defaming the director Sohail Javed in 2019. At the Lahooti Melo Festival, Jami had read out an anonymous letter written by a sexual harassment survivor and posted the clip on his Facebook page. Director Sohail Javed had filed the defamation case against Jami, claiming that many people in the comment section had directly linked the letter to him, even though Jami had not publicly referenced him in any such way.
Javed had filed a complaint saying the letter contained specific references to him such as referring to the abuser as a ‘music video and TVC director’, also mentioning that he was ‘a panellist at a festival in Hyderabad’ and ‘introduced his 23 or 24 year old son to me, who worked in the same profession as mine’.
The sentencing had attracted outrage on social media from various activists and public figures, who criticised the justice system of Pakistan for punishing survivors of sexual abuse.
Jami, a wonderful person and award-winning filmmaker has been jailed for reading an anonymous letter from sexual abuse victim. Everyone else slowly backed down from the victim’s support while he continued to stand with her. Shame on this “justice” system!#IStandWithJami pic.twitter.com/n5EGBjZNdW
— Syed Zain Raza (@MrZainRaza) July 9, 2025
#IStandWithJami
Jami is in jail for speaking his conscience, standing by his principles, and being the voice of the voiceless. As a victim himself who struggled for years to speak about his own suffering, he chose to support another victim and refused to compromise or retreat in… pic.twitter.com/IQOP0DNimP— M. Jibran Nasir 🇵🇸 (@MJibranNasir) July 8, 2025
