Specializing in Advocacy and Design
This portfolio is a collection of my recent work, along with a few older projects related to communications. It reflects my experience across research, media, and design.
My Role: I led the communications strategy, managed project execution, and oversaw all visual and branding elements, ensuring that the storytelling was compelling and reached the right audiences. I was also the producer, cinematogapher, and editor of the documentary film.
Background
In the weeks leading up to Prisoners’ Justice Day, we were still uncertain about the direction of our campaign. We knew we wanted to tell a compelling story—something that would resonate beyond statistics and policy briefs—but we hadn’t found the right case. It wasn’t until I was going through our client files that I came across Ghulam Abbas’s case. His story stood out: a man sentenced to death, navigating a justice system that never fully saw him, failed by the very institutions meant to protect him. What made his case even more striking was that he died in the custody of the Punjab Institute of Mental Health. This immediately made me ask, why? Why was he there? What led to his death? It felt like the perfect example of neglect within the justice system, a case that could reflect the very history and purpose of Prisoners’ Justice Day ,a day that originated to commemorate those who have died in custody due to mistreatment and systemic failures.
The idea came almost instinctively—what if we could tell his story through a documentary? Instead of another report or awareness campaign, we could create something visceral, intimate, and humanizing. I pitched the concept to our Executive Director, and she agreed.
What followed was a deep, often frustrating, investigation. We traveled across Punjab, meeting people who had encountered Ghulam Abbas at different points in his life—his family, neighbors, and legal representatives. With an investigator by our side, we tried to piece together who he was, what had happened, and why his case had fallen through the cracks. We collected court records, spoke to those who had once fought for him, and stood outside homes that had long forgotten his name.
But instead of clarity, the journey left me with more questions. The case was riddled with contradictions, missing documents, and half-told accounts. Each person we spoke to seemed to carry a different version of the truth. What we did uncover, however, was a pattern of systemic failures—an individual caught in a cycle of neglect, from inadequate legal representation to a judicial system that never accounted for his vulnerabilities.
This uncertainty, rather than being a weakness, became the driving force of our documentary. Instead of presenting a neatly wrapped narrative, we leaned into the ambiguity, the gaps, and the unanswered questions. The goal was no longer just to recount Ghulam Abbas’s story but to force the audience to grapple with the same discomfort I felt—to acknowledge that the justice system often operates in the shadows of what is unknown, undocumented, and ignored.
For the first phase of our social media campaign, I focused on educating our audience about the history and significance of International Prisoners’ Justice Day before introducing Ghulam Abbas’s case. The goal was to contextualize the campaign—to help people understand why wrongful convictions, prison neglect, and systemic failures are global issues, not just isolated incidents.
By starting with historical context, I aimed to:
- Build awareness about the origins of Prisoners’ Justice Day and its role in prison reform movements.
- Connect global injustices to the realities of Pakistan’s justice system.
- Prime the audience emotionally and intellectually, so they would engage more deeply with Ghulam Abbas’s story in the next phase of the campaign.
Part 2: Educating the Public on the Safia Bano Judgment
For the second phase of the campaign, I shifted the focus to legal education, specifically on the Safia Bano judgment, a landmark ruling that set legal protections for mentally ill prisoners on death row. The goal was to bridge the gap between Ghulam Abbas’s story and the broader systemic failures that continue to impact vulnerable individuals.
By educating the audience on the Safia Bano judgment, I aimed to:
- Explain the legal context behind the death of Ghulam Abbas and others like him.
- Highlight the failure of implementation—despite the ruling, mentally ill prisoners continue to face execution due to lack of enforcement.
- Showcase the urgency for reform, reinforcing the message that wrongful executions are preventable if legal safeguards are properly applied.
Part 3: Sharing the Story of Ghulam Abbas’s Mother
For the third phase of the campaign, I shifted the focus to humanizing the impact of wrongful convictions by sharing the words of Ghulam Abbas’s mother. While researching his case, I came across a heart-wrenching letter she had written to the judge, pleading for her son’s life. This letter, raw and deeply personal, encapsulated the pain, desperation, and systemic neglect that families of mentally ill prisoners experience.
I chose to structure this part of the campaign around her voice, ensuring that her grief and struggle were not overshadowed by statistics or legal analysis. The posts in this phase:
- Revealed the generational cycle of suffering, as she described her family’s long history with mental illness, poverty, and tragedy.
- Highlighted the failure of the justice system, showing how her pleas for mercy, backed by medical evidence, were ignored.
- Personalized the impact of wrongful incarceration, shifting the narrative from legal failure to a deeply human story of loss and helplessness.
Part 4: Educating the Public on Ghulam Abbas’s Case
Following the documentary screening, the next phase of the campaign was designed to educate the public on the specifics of Ghulam Abbas’s case. By this point, the audience had already been introduced to the history of Prisoners’ Justice Day, the Safia Bano judgment, and the personal story of Ghulam Abbas’s mother. Now, we wanted to provide a detailed, factual breakdown of his case, ensuring that his story was not just an emotional narrative but a concrete example of systemic failure.
Key Objectives of This Phase:
- Present a clear case timeline to help the audience understand how Ghulam Abbas ended up in prison and why his execution was unjust.
- Expose systemic failures—from his wrongful conviction to his treatment in prison and ultimate death in custody.
- Emphasize legal and medical neglect, particularly how the Pakistani justice system failed to account for his mental illness despite existing legal precedents.
- Engage the audience in advocacy, encouraging them to reflect on the broader implications of his case.
Post-Screening Engagement: A Successful Q&A Session
After the screening of Shackled: The Tragic Life of Ghulam Abbas, we facilitated a Q&A session with the audience, which proved to be one of the most impactful moments of the campaign. The discussion provided an opportunity to delve deeper into the legal, medical, and systemic failures that led to Ghulam Abbas’s wrongful conviction and death in custody.
The audience, which included lawyers, activists, students, and members of the press, engaged with the case critically, asking insightful questions about:
- The role of the justice system in ensuring protections for mentally ill prisoners.
- The failures in medical intervention that allowed Ghulam Abbas’s condition to deteriorate in custody.
- The broader implications of his case for other vulnerable prisoners on death row.
- The next steps in advocating for reform and ensuring that legal precedents like the Safia Bano judgment are implemented in practice.
This session reinforced the importance of using storytelling as a tool for advocacy. By engaging the audience in dialogue, we transformed the screening from a passive viewing experience into a call to action—encouraging attendees to think critically about policy gaps, legal safeguards, and the urgent need for reform in Pakistan’s criminal justice system.
Final Phase: Sharing Event Photos on Social Media
To conclude the campaign, we shared photos from the screening and Q&A session on social media. This final post served multiple purposes:
- Celebrating the event’s impact, highlighting key moments from the screening, audience reactions, and the discussion.
- Reinforcing the campaign’s message, ensuring that the momentum of the conversation extended beyond the event itself.
- Encouraging continued engagement, inviting people who couldn’t attend to learn more about Ghulam Abbas’s case and the broader issue of wrongful convictions.
Expanding the Reach: Creating a Screening Toolkit
Following the success of the film screening and discussion, I wanted to ensure that Shackled: The Tragic Life of Ghulam Abbas reached an even wider audience—beyond just legal circles, activists, and policymakers. The documentary had sparked important conversations, but I felt that its impact shouldn’t be limited to a single event.
To make the film more accessible and educational, I decided to develop a screening toolkit in both English and Urdu. The toolkit was designed to serve as a comprehensive guide for individuals and organizations interested in hosting their own screenings—whether in urban centers, rural areas, or educational institutions.
The toolkit includes:
- Background on the case of Ghulam Abbas to provide context for viewers.
- Discussion prompts and guided questions to facilitate meaningful conversations after screenings.
- Information on mental health issues in prisons, wrongful convictions, and the rights of prisoners under Pakistani law.
- Steps for organizing a community or school screening, making it easy for teachers, activists, and local leaders to engage their audiences.
I saw this as an opportunity to expand outreach to rural areas and schools, where discussions on mental health, prisoners’ rights, and the justice system are often lacking. By taking the conversation beyond urban advocacy spaces, this initiative aimed to educate a broader segment of society—from students learning about human rights for the first time to communities directly impacted by the justice system.
This final step in the campaign wasn’t just about continuing the conversation—it was about turning awareness into action, ensuring that Ghulam Abbas’s story could inform, challenge, and inspire change well beyond the initial audience.