A Lahore court has ruled in favour of Pakistani singer Ali Zafar in his defamation case against fellow singer Meesha Shafi. On Tuesday, the court ordered Shafi to pay Zafar 5 million rupees ($17,900) in damages.

Zafar sued Shafi for defamation in 2018 after she accused him of sexual harassment in Pakistan’s highest-profile #MeToo case.

What has the court ruled?

The court’s ruling, which has not been released to the public but has been seen by several Pakistani media outlets, states that a 2018 social media post by Shafi and an interview she gave to a lifestyle magazine contained “false, defamatory and injurious imputations” against the plaintiff, Zafar.

The court found that her allegations of sexual harassment of a physical nature had not been proved to be true or shown to be made for the public good, and therefore constituted actionable defamation, according to Pakistan’s leading daily newspaper, Dawn.

The court added that Shafi was to be “permanently restrained from repeating, publishing, or causing to be published, directly or indirectly, the aforesaid defamatory allegations of sexual harassment of a physical nature against the plaintiff, in any form of media”.

This order will be appealed to the High Court, Nighat Dad, the lawyer who represented Shafi in court, told Al Jazeera.

As well as a member of Shafi’s legal team, Dad is the executive director of a nongovernmental, research-based advocacy organisation, the Digital Rights Foundation.

She said: “The appeal is likely to challenge the judgement on several grounds: that the trial court misread and selectively interpreted the evidence, failed to properly consider material evidence presented by Meesha, and overlooked the legal context, particularly that her sexual harassment complaint against Ali Zafar is still pending before the Supreme Court.”

What was the #MeToo case involving Shafi and Zafar?

In April 2018, Shafi, now 44, posted a statement through a series of posts on X, then called Twitter, accusing Zafar of sexually harassing her on multiple occasions.

Shafi wrote: “I have been subjected, on more than one occasion, to sexual harassment of a physical nature at the hands of a colleague from my industry: Ali Zafar.”

Shafi added that she was speaking up as an “empowered, accomplished woman who is known for speaking her mind!”

In her posts, Shafi referred to the global “#MeToo” movement by women and girls against sexual harassment and assault.

The hashtag gained worldwide prominence in 2017 when women in Hollywood and beyond began speaking out in the wake of allegations against the former American film producer and now convicted sex offender, Harvey Weinstein.

Within hours of Shafi’s post, Zafar, now 45, responded on X: “I categorically deny any and all claims of harassment lodged against me by Ms Shafi.”

He added that he intended to take the allegation to “the courts of law” and to address them legally rather than “contesting personal vendettas on social media and in turn disrespecting the movement”.

Shafi and Zafar were once known to be friends and are both prominent figures in Pakistan’s entertainment industry. Both have also made appearances in films outside Pakistan. Shafi even performed a small cameo role in 2003 in a music video for Zafar’s first album.

In April 2018, Shafi spoke about her allegations against Zafar during an interview with fashion and lifestyle magazine Instep Pakistan.

She told the magazine that she had not publicly spoken about the harassment at the time it happened because “I’m a public figure and so is he (Ali Zafar). My thought process was who I am and who he is and what that’s going to lead to. Being ready to talk was far off because it had just happened. I buried it.”

Have other women accused Zafar of inappropriate behaviour?

Yes. Several Pakistani celebrities and public figures posted in support of Shafi online after her 2018 X posts.

Additionally, other women came forward to accuse Zafar of sexual harassment.

They included makeup artist and painter Leena Ghani, who wrote in a statement on X in April 2018 that Zafar had on “several occasions” crossed the boundaries of what is considered appropriate behaviour between friends.

“Inappropriate contact, groping, sexual comments should not fall in the grey area between humour and indecency,” Ghani said.

Maham Javaid, a journalist who now works for The Washington Post, alleged in April 2018 that Zafar had tried to kiss her cousin and pull her inside a restroom in a now-deleted X post.

How has the dispute between Shafi and Zafar unfolded?

The pair have filed a slew of complaints against each other.

In June 2018, Zafar filed his one‑billion‑rupee defamation suit against Shafi. At the time, that was equivalent to more than $8m. It is now equivalent to $3.5m, due to the devaluation of the Pakistani rupee.

Shafi then filed a complaint about the alleged harassment before the Ombudsperson Punjab for Protection Against Harassment of Women at the Workplace, later in 2018.

Her complaint was rejected on the technical grounds that she and Zafar did not have an employer-employee relationship. An appeal is pending in the Supreme Court.

Zafar also filed a separate cybercrime complaint with the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) in November 2018, alleging that Shafi and others were running a coordinated smear campaign against him on social media.

Based on this report, the FIA filed a First Information Report (FIR) against Shafi and eight others in September 2020 under Pakistan’s Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (PECA).

Those named in the complaint included Ghani, Javaid, comedian Ali Gul Pir and actor Iffat Omar, who had publicly supported Shafi and posted critical comments about Zafar online. The PECA offences they were charged under – criminal defamation provisions covering “offences against dignity” – carried a maximum penalty of three years in prison.

It is not known publicly whether the FIA cybercrime case has reached a verdict.

In September 2019, Shafi filed her own two-billion-rupee civil defamation suit against Zafar in a Lahore court, accusing him of making false allegations about her in the media. Two billion rupees was worth roughly $13m when Shafi filed the suit in 2019; due to the rupee’s steep depreciation, the same amount is now worth about $7m. That case is ongoing.

What has been the response to this week’s defamation ruling?

Actor and television host Iffat Omar, who was also named in the FIA cybercrime case and was also a witness for Shafi in Zafar’s defamation case against her, criticised the court ruling in an X post on Tuesday.

Omar wrote: “People were silenced, pressured, bought, and scared. The entire support system was broken. On top of that, we were accused of running a foreign agenda, of being paid huge amounts in dollars. I said it then, and I say it again – prove it in court. I am ready to open all my bank accounts, everything.”

Last week, Saqib Jilani, another of Shafi’s lawyers, asked the Lahore court to dismiss the defamation lawsuit, arguing that Zafar had not produced any concrete evidence to support his defamation claims.

Also last week, Shafi’s mother, the Pakistani actor Saba Hameed, who has been attending court proceedings in Pakistan while her daughter lives in Canada, told reporters: “We have been fighting this for eight years, and we are not accepting defeat in this matter.”

What happens next?

Shafi’s legal team intends to appeal the defamation ruling in favour of Zafar to the High Court. “This is far from the end of the road,” Dad told Al Jazeera.

She added that other legal actions relating to this are ongoing.

“Meesha Shafi’s original complaint of sexual harassment against Ali Zafar has been pending before the Supreme Court for several years now,” Dad explained, referring to the 2018 complaint dismissed on technical grounds by the Office of the Ombudsperson Punjab for Protection Against Harassment of Women, but which Shafi has appealed.

“Separately, Ali Zafar initiated a criminal case alleging cyber-defamation against Meesha and her witnesses, which also reached the Supreme Court and is currently stayed.”

Dad said that Shafi’s civil defamation suit against Zafar is also still pending.

Why is this significant?

“This ruling risks setting a deeply troubling precedent,” Dad said.

Currently, she said, survivors of sexual harassment face major legal, social and reputational barriers. Decisions like the Lahore court’s recent order are likely to discourage victims of sexual harassment “from speaking out at all”.

“If defamation law is interpreted in a way that punishes speech before underlying harassment claims are even adjudicated, it shifts the burden unfairly onto survivors and reinforces silence over accountability,” Dad added.

“And that is the real danger here.”