Adding my support here to GC and the other former international captains. I hope the court ordered medical assessment be allowed to run its course, and that family visits continue. I hope Imran Khan is treated with the dignity anyone deserves
Today marks 3 years since Imran Khan was unjustly incarcerated.
He is still being denied basic human rights and remains in solitary confinement.
His abominable treatment is an affront to democracy. I will continue to demand the release of all political prisoners, everywhere.
⚡️NEW from Drop Site News | From Mutual Suspicion to Political Embrace: How the U.S. Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Pakistan
From @worqas, @MazMHussain, and @ryangrim
https://t.co/dvvp0EYViy
On the Cipher, the Coverup, and the Consequences:
Drop Site News published a document, claiming that it is the original Cipher I-0678 dated 7 March 2022, and it came from a military source. The world now believes that this is the smoking gun. Let's dissect it from there.
Pakistan's establishment spent four years suppressing, prosecuting people over it, claiming that it did not exist. The truth was forced out not from within Pakistan, but by an American investigative outlet. That fact alone is the indictment.
Donald Lu told Pakistan's Ambassador plainly: “All will be forgiven in Washington”, if the no-confidence motion against PM @ImranKhanPTI succeeded, while warning of isolation if it did not. This was not diplomacy. It was a threat and a bribe, delivered in the same breath, to a sovereign nation's ambassador. The NSC in its two meetings clearly stated that this amounted to unacceptable and blatant interference in the internal affairs of Pakistan and that the Govt. rightly issued a démarche.
On 12 May 2022, I as President formally wrote to CJP Umar Bandial requesting a Judicial Commission, open hearings, full investigation and truth be placed on record. This was published in all newspapers. (Please read the letter below, every word carries historic weight in world affairs of this nature).
CJP received that letter. Did not comment. Did not act. The judiciary's silence marked the beginning of its institutional surrender. Had that Commission been constituted, these questions would have been answered under oath: who received the cipher, who acted upon it, who domestically facilitated the foreign signal, and which institutions of the Pakistani state collaborated in the removal of an elected prime minister.
Pakistan would have had the truth. A man who warned the nation would not have been imprisoned on false charges arising from the very document the state refused to investigate. Instead, the nation got four years of compounding ruin.
A regime was not merely changed but democracy was dismantled, piece by piece, demolished with full institutional complicity at every level. Parliament was reduced to a 'stinking chamber of convenience'. PTI commanding the largest popular mandate in Pakistan's history had its electoral symbol stolen, its seats brazenly allocated to others by judicial decree, all to hand a 17-seat party, a fraudulent two-thirds majority.
PTI's workers were tried in military courts. Its voters were disenfranchised. Its leader imprisoned — on charges arising from the very document the state refused to examine. The 26th & 27th Amendments were coercively passed, turning the judiciary into a handmaiden of the executive, an instrument of crooked consolidation rather than a guardian of rights.
Now count the human cost. 44% of our people are below the poverty line, 105 million people that is 20 million more than in 2019. Real incomes have collapsed. GDP growth of barely 3% cannot keep pace with population, let alone absorb new labour. Terrorism is at its highest. Capital is leaving, not arriving. 22 million young Pakistanis are neither working nor studying, 25 million children are out of school. The direction is unambiguous: Pakistan is getting poorer, faster than ever.
These are not statistics. These are children going to bed hungry. Young men drowning on boats to shores that may kill them, because their own country is pushing them out. Mothers choosing between medicine and bread. Every single one of these human beings is a direct, traceable, forensic consequence of the decision made in April 2022 to subvert the democratic mandate of the Pakistani people. This is not an act of God. It is the price of a conspiracy with all its collaborators naked before the people.
Donald Lu issued a threat. He did not remove a government. Pakistanis removed a Pakistani government. General Bajwa in uniform. Some in robes. Some in ‘dastaar’. Corrupt politicians, some with deep pockets from Dubai. They chose a foreign signal over the people and the constitution they had sworn to protect. The perpetrators were not only foreign but local. Let that be stated plainly and permanently on the record.
To those who say, "this is the past, let us move forward", I say that: There is no investment without rule of law. There is no rule of law without an independent judiciary. And there is no independent judiciary that can be built upon the foundations of predominantly crooked judges. The path forward runs through the truth, not around it.
Pakistan's economic misery, its institutional decay, total corruption, national termites eating up everything, none of it is an act of God. It is the direct and traceable consequence of a criminal regime change, facilitated from without and executed from within.
The contents of the cipher as reported are now public. The record is clear. The usurpers remain in power orchestrating my country's misery. The only reasonable and just way forward is unambiguous: LEAVE and let my people LIVE.
It pains me to invoke Iqbal for those who betrayed this nation, but this verse is timeless:
جعفر از بنگال و صادق از دکن
ننگِ آدم، ننگِ دیں، ننگِ وطن
Jaffer of Bengal, Sadiq of Deccan,
Disgrace to humanity, disgrace to faith, disgrace to country.
The cipher has spoken. Now Pakistan must. 🇵🇰
🚨BREAKING: For the first time, the original Pakistani cypher — cable I-0678, the document that triggered the removal of former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan — is being released in full by Drop Site.
My latest for the Washington Post on Imran Khan. The legendary cricketer and politician Pakistan can jail, censor but never erase. @PostOpinions
https://t.co/F5YMqo9I5Y
Imran Khan is the legitimate PM of Pakistan and was ousted at Washington's behest for the crime of trading with Russia, safeguarding Pakistan's interests, and criticizing US foreign policy. He's still in prison almost 3 years later, in solitary confinement.
1/16 Project Imran Khan - The Raftar Episode
The Raftar documentary is 58 minutes of archival footage arranged to reach a conclusion that the evidence doesn’t support. It explains how a man rose. It cannot explain why, three years after the plug was pulled, he is still standing. That gap is the actual story.
Today, I had the honour of speaking to the 47 countries that comprise the @UN#HumanRightsCouncil urging the immediate release of my father @imrankhanpti and all #Pakistan’s #politicalprisoners. Along with this, I want to be very clear. Like my father, I fully support maintaining GSP+ as the people of #Pakistan should never be punished for the actions of its leaders. But the Pakistani regime must also fully comply with the 27 treaties it committed to follow to obtain this benefit, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and Convention Against Torture. @UN@ptiofficial #HumanRights #ImranKhanUnlawfullyDetained
The treatment of Imran Khan at the hands of the Pakistani government is an international outrage.
Today Peers across the House urged the UK Foreign minister to step up
@ImranKhanPTI
❗️Former Cricket Captains Step In To Demand Fair Treatment For Imran Khan From Pakistani Gov't
The letter, which says "a person of Imran Khan's stature deserves to be treated with the dignity and basic human consideration befitting a former national leader and a global sporting icon," comes following reports of the former leaders' ill treatment in prison.
Kapil Dev, Sunil Gavaskar among 14 former international cricket captains requesting Pakistan Govt for fair medical treatment, dignified detention conditions and fair trial for Imran Khan
These guys have shown how they may have been rivals on the field but will be friends forever
IMP: The list has no Pakistani name on it. Sad
Unless we remove political influence and personal agendas from Pakistan cricket, we cannot return to the team we once were. This is the darkest period in our cricketing history, and my heart bleeds for it. Incompetent individuals must be removed from office and from the team.
Imran Khan continues to suffer ongoing hardship in a Pakistani jail - my prayers are with him. Thank God his spiritual strength is unbroken. Once, they sang his praise, he was their darling, East and West. When he demonstrated that he could not be corrupted they silenced him. This unlawful incarceration needs to come to an end.
#Peace #ImranKhanPTI #ImranKhanHealthEmemrgency #ImranKhan
One World Cup. One university. Three cancer hospitals. Thirty years of political struggle and family sacrifice. Four bullets. Three years in jail. One eye. No crime. Still standing. What a man.
Australia captain Pat Cummins has become the second player in history with more than 150 Test wickets - after the great Pakistan legend Imran Khan ✨️👑
Imran Khan: 187 wickets at an average of 20.27 🏅
Pat Cummins: 151 wickets at an average of 22.54 🥈
Two leaders who always lead from the front! ❤️
#ImranKhan #PatCummins #TestCricket
“Ignorance is bliss” would apply if a false claim had been made. None was. I did not attribute the project to any party, nor did I deny the role of others.
The intent was simply to highlight KP’s infrastructure and natural beauty, especially in response to a growing narrative that the province has “nothing to show.” The aim was visibility and correction, not political ownership.
Development in Pakistan has always been the result of continuity across governments. CPEC is not the product of one party alone, just as KP’s progress cannot fairly be described as zero, nor is it without shortcomings.
PTI is the first political party in KP’s history to be elected consecutively three times. Such repeated electoral support does not emerge in the absence of performance, even if that performance remains open to critique and improvement.
PTI’s performance in KP has not been perfect, but it is also not as bleak as often portrayed. A balanced view serves the public better than extremes.
As a federal minister, this was an opportunity to de-escalate the ethnic and provincial polarization we are witnessing. Turning it into a partisan exchange only deepens divisions. That is the real difference between public office and paid political amplification.