Former Pakistan PM pushes street protests against Asim Law
Pakistan’s jailed former prime minister Imran Khan has directed Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Sohail Afridi of his party to prepare for a street movement against “Asim Law”, in an apparent reference to Chief of Defence Forces Asim Munir. Khan, 73, who has been in jail since August 2023, faces multiple cases launched against him since his ouster from power in April 2022. He and his wife, Bushra Bibi, were sentenced to 17 years in jail each by a court on Saturday in the Toshakhana 2 corruption case.
“My message for Sohail Afridi is to prepare for a street movement. The entire nation must rise for its rights. To strive for justice is a sacred duty, and I am ready to lay down my life for Haqeeqi Azadi (true freedom) of my nation,” Khan said in a post on X on Monday.
The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) founder further said that Pakistan is being governed solely under “Asim Law”. “Here, verdicts are pre-written and merely announced aloud. Like the baseless decisions and sentences of the past three years, the Toshakhana 2 verdict is nothing new for me. This ruling, too, was delivered in haste, without any evidence and without fulfilling legal requirements,” Khan said.
Khan said that the solitary confinement imposed on him and his wife constitutes severe mental torture. “We are barred from books, television, and meetings. Although television access is granted to every other prisoner, even this fundamental facility has been withheld from Bushra Bibi and me. The books sent by my family are confiscated by jail authorities, and we are kept in solitary confinement for weeks at a time,” he said.
“This treatment is inhumane, yet all this oppression and brutality cannot weaken my resolve,” he said, adding that it is not “our tradition to target women and children as our religion mandates mercy toward women even during warfare, yet here they are being persecuted purely out of political vendetta.” Khan also lambasted the military-backed Government of Shehbaz Sharif. “When I criticise Asim Munir, it is criticism of an individual, just as past dictators were criticised.
Asim Munir did not come into power through a public referendum or popular vote. Whatever is happening to me in jail is being carried out on the instructions of a colonel acting under Asim Munir’s orders,” he claimed. For the struggle to restore the rule of law and uphold the Constitution, the Insaf Lawyers Forum and legal fraternity need to step forward decisively, as only a just legal system can safeguard the people; without it, neither economic progress nor moral development is possible, Khan said. The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) founder further said that Pakistan is being governed solely under “Asim Law”.
