Ayaz Nizami is a blogger and political prisoner in Pakistan known for his arrest on 24 March 2017 for alleged blasphemy,[1] with a possible death penalty for such charges.
[4] Waheed is a religious scholar,[5] who primarily specialises in Islamic law such as "tafsir, Hadiths, Fiqh and their principles";[5] besides this, he is an expert in Arabic language, grammar, terminology, philosophy and rational thinking.
[5][6] Before his arrest, he allegedly translated materials critical of Islam in English to Urdu for publishing, and was first exposed by Alyan Khan, a Pakistani political author.
Two other bloggers were arrested along with Nizami in a crackdown on social media content deemed blasphemous by the Pakistani government.
[9] After his arrest, the hashtag #hangayaznizami and #FreeAyazNizami was trending on Twitter in Pakistan,[10] and authorities shut down his social media account over material deemed controversial.