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.
Search the history of democratic elections for a parallel to February 8, 2024. You will not find one.
Imran Khan was imprisoned. His name and image were suppressed. PTI was stripped of its electoral symbol, and its candidates were forced to run as independents. Party workers were arrested, social media was disrupted, and the information environment was engineered against them.
Yet the Pakistani people voted anyway.
They identified candidates without a common symbol, coordinated without functioning party machinery, and delivered PTI-backed independents more National Assembly seats than any other political grouping.
Consider the closest historical comparisons: Solidarity in Poland could campaign openly. Corazon Aquino could hold rallies and appear in the press. Mandela’s ANC could organize publicly. Pakistanis voted for a leader they could not see, under a symbol they had been denied, and through candidates whose party did not legally appear on the ballot.
The mandate was given. It was not honored.
Now, amid serious concerns raised by Imran Khan’s family and physicians about his health, the Supreme Court’s order must be upheld in full. He must receive proper medical care, access to his personal physician, and regular contact with his family. A court order concerning a prisoner’s health and basic rights cannot be treated as optional – or obeyed only selectively.
February 8 must remain in Pakistan’s political memory – not merely as an election, but as the day the people upheld the social contract after the state had abandoned it. Whether the Supreme Court’s order is honored will now show whether the state considers itself bound by law at all.
History will remember this night: while a military dictator had his powers expanded through hijacked and fake government, Imran Khan chose to walk back into a prison cell rather than let even the word “deal” be attached to his name.
Some chase power. Some become bigger than it.
If there is one thing Imran Khan has always loved it is HYPE. If there is one thing that defines PTI's politics it is HYPE. If there is one thing the Establishment has tried to take away from both the PTI and Imran it is HYPE. Today as he moves out of jail and to Shifa Hospital there is total HYPE. Domestic HYPE. International HYPE. Imran is a subject that refuses to go away. He is a news cycle that continues to unfold.
اپنی اٹھارہ سالہ زندگی میں میں نے بڑے بڑے مطمئن بے غیرت لوگ دیکھے ہیں، مگر بحری، بری اور فضائی افواج کے ان لاکھوں جوانوں جیسے مطمئن بے غیرت نہیں دیکھے، جن کی حیثیت اب عاصم منیر کے سامنے کتوں جیسی رہ جائے گی۔ اب عاصم منیر جسے چاہے بھوکا مار دے، جسے چاہے روٹی ڈالے، اور جسے چاہے بے روزگار کر سکے گا۔
اسی اپوزیشن میں بیٹھا ہوا تھا ایک شخص نے غلط زبان استعمال کی میں خاموش رہا۔۔لیکن میں ان کو کہنا چاہتا ہوں پارلیمنٹ میں ایسی زبان استعمال نہیں ہوتی
دبنگ لیڈر عمران خان
سپریم کورٹ رجسٹرار نے بدحواس پٹواریوں کی فیصلہ نظر ثانی درخواست اعتراضات کے ساتھ واپس کر دی۔ قیدی نوازشریف کی علاج کے بہانے لندن فرار ہلال اور PM عمران خان کا اپنے ملک میں علاج غیرقانونی؟ پٹواری اپنی منجی تھلے ڈانگ پھیریں۔