Prime Minister @andyburnham and Foreign Secretary @Ed_Miliband : how much longer will Britain remain silent?
For three years the father of my two sons, and Pakistan’s former Prime Minister, Imran Khan, has been brutally penalised by his political opponents, in a personal vendetta by Army Chief, Asim Munir, which according to the UN, amounts to torture and which is now taking a potentially fatal toll on his physical and mental health.
He has endured 3 years of solitary confinement. For nearly ten months now his family has been denied contact with him. He has been deprived of the most basic human contact, denied access to books, lawyers and doctors.
The international human-rights standards are unequivocal. Under the UN’s Nelson Mandela Rules, solitary confinement lasting more than 15 consecutive days is prohibited and amounts to torture.
He has endured this treatment not for 15 days, but for three years.
Pakistan’s own Supreme Court has now intervened: ordering comprehensive medical treatment, access to his personal doctor, regular family visits and twice-weekly calls with his sons.
Yet those orders are being defied.
This is no longer simply a Pakistani political matter. It is a human-rights emergency.
He has deep and lifelong ties to Britain. He studied at Oxford University, captained Oxford University cricket and spent years playing county cricket in England. His relationship with this country stretches back more than half a century. His charitable activities were internationally recognised, and include building the only free cancer hospital in Pakistan as well as a university.
His sons, my two boys, Sulaiman and Kasim, are British citizens. They have been forced to watch their father’s health decline from thousands of miles away, prevented from visiting him, denied visas, publicly threatened by government officials with arrest themselves, and even denied court-mandated regular phone calls.
I have repeatedly appealed to the UK government to intervene. Purported attempts at back channelling have evidently failed. The previous Foreign Secretary @DavidLammy informed me in writing that Britain would not intervene if my sons, British citizens, are arrested when they travel to Pakistan to visit their father.
@FCDOGovUK: Britain must now speak out publicly and unequivocally. Demand that Pakistan comply with its own Supreme Court; restore Imran Khan’s medical access, his right to see his family, end his prolonged isolation and uphold his fundamental human rights.
Pakistan is a Commonwealth country. Britain has a long and proud tradition of standing against arbitrary detention, inhumane treatment and the denial of fundamental rights. Those principles mean very little if we invoke them only selectively and neglect them when inconvenient.
This an appeal to the new Burnham government to please now do the right thing.
میرا رب سچ کا خُدا ہے۔ اللّٰہ تعالیٰ ہمیشہ حق اور سچ پر رہنے والوں کا ساتھ دیتا ہے۔ آج سائفر کی حقیقت سامنے آگئی۔ عمران خان صاحب نے ہمیشہ سچ بولا ہے۔ ہمیشہ حق بات کی ہے۔
عمران خان صاحب نے ہمیشہ پاکستان اور پاکستانیوں کی سالمیت اور خودمختاری کی بات کی ہے۔ اپنی قوم کی عزت نفس کا خیال رکھا ہے۔ غلامی قبول نہیں کی۔ وہ ��یک آزاد شخص ہے اور اپنی قوم کو بھی آزاد دیکھنا ان کا خواب ہے۔ جو ہر صورت پورا ہوگا انشاء اللّٰہ
اڈیالہ کی دیواریں کچھ وقت کے لئے انہیں قید تو رکھ سکتی ہے لیکن دیواروں کے پیچھے بھی وہ ایک آزاد شخص ہیں۔ انشاء اللّٰہ یہ دیواریں ایک آزاد شخص کو زیادہ دیر قید نہیں رکھ پائینگی۔ ناجائز طریقے سے کرسیوں پر بیٹھے بیرونی غلام آزاد ہو کر بھی غلام ہیں۔
پاکستانیوں کا مینڈیٹ چوری کر کے نااہلوں کو ملک پر مسلط کیا گیا ہے۔ اپنے آقاؤں کو خوش کرنے کے لیے پاکستان کو تباہی کی طرف دھکیل دیا گیا ہے۔ عوام پر قرضوں، مہنگائی اور بیروزگاری کے پہاڑ توڑے گئے ہیں۔ پاکستان دن بدن تباہی کی طرف جا رہا ہے لیکن کچھ لوگوں کا مفاد اور مقصد عمران خان صاحب کو جُھکانا اور پاکستان تحریک انصاف کو ختم کرنا ہی ہے اور یہ خواب انشاء اللّٰہ کبھی پورا نہیں ہوگا۔
یہ نااہلوں کا ٹولہ اب مزید ملک پر اور مُلک پر مسلط کرنے والوں پر بوجھ بن گیا ہے۔ عمران خان صاحب واحد شخص ہے جو پاکستان کو بچا سکتا ہے۔ جو آنکھوں میں آنکھیں ڈال کر بیرونی طاقتوں سے پاکستان کے لیے فیصلے کر سکتا ہے۔ بیرونی غلامی کو Absolutely Notبول سکتا ہے۔ معیشت بہتر کر سکتا ہے۔ قوم کو اکٹھا کر سکتا ہے۔ قوم کو صرف اس پر اعتماد ہے۔ عمران خان صاحب نے اب آنا ہے۔ یہ قوم کی ضد ہے اور ملک کی ضرورت۔
Called him irrelevant and threw every label at him, yet so threatened by him that they had to push the voter age to 25. Meanwhile, it was Imran Khan who pushed for EVMs to bring transparency to elections. Says everything about who actually holds public trust & who’s afraid of it.