Gulalai Ismail reports that her father has been abducted.

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.

Aka being too liberal, too feminist, too secular. That’s the problem with theocracy, isn’t it, anything you do that strikes someone as being in conflict with the state religion can get you arrested or worse. Pakistan’s version of Islam is not keen on human rights activists who think girls and women should not be denied human rights.

Gulalai tweets:

International Federation for Human Rights published urgent appeal on the abduction of my father and human rights activist @ProfMIsmail from Peshawar High Court premises. #ReleaseProfIsmail

The Alliance for Peacebuilding and Peace Direct express their deep concern over the abduction of Professor Muhammad Ismail, the father of exiled peacebuilding leader Gululai Ismail, in Peshawar, Pakistan, earlier today.

OMCT (World Organization Against Torture (OMCT) urgent appeal against the abduction of renowned human rights activist @ProfMIsmail; my father. OMCT asks Pakistan to conform to the provisions of the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders.

Who can better understand the pain of relatives being persecuted than our sister Wrranga who lost her brother Arman Luni to the brutal police state but justice is yet not in sight for Arman Luni. #JusticeForArmanLuni #JusticeForPTMActivists

Wrranga Luni tweets:

I strongly condemn the abduction of Professor Ismail. Here all activists that speak against HR violations & want peace in Pashtun land are criminals, facing threats, kidnapping & killings, but terrorists & assassins of hundreds enjoy impunity & roam free.

#ReleaseProfIsmail

Pass it on.