Imran Khan’s party to hold protest rallies across Pak to mark his three years in jail

Incarcerated former Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan’s party on Thursday gave a countrywide protest call on August 5 to mark the day their leader completes three years in jail.

Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party said the protest movement will begin on August 5 and continue till their leader is released.  Currently lodged in solitary confinement at the Adiala Jail, Rawalpindi, the 73-year-old international cricketer turned politician was arrested on August 5, 2023, after an Islamabad trial court found him guilty of corrupt practices in the Toshakhana (national treasury) case. He has been subsequently arrested and convicted in some cases, leading to continued incarceration.

“August 5 will mark the completion of three years of the PTI founder’s imprisonment and rallies will be held across the country to mark the occasion,” PTI General Secretary Salman Akram Raja told reporters outside the Adiala Jail.  He also warned the Government to not launch a crackdown against the party workers.

“Imran Khan has been kept in solitary confinement for months. No one from his family or lawyers has been allowed to meet him since December last year. He is not given proper medical care nor is he getting justice from the courts.

The oppression and injustice in the country must come to an end,” Raja lambasted. Every week, Khan’s sisters, lawyers and some party workers gather outside the Adiala Jail to press the Government to allow the family to meet him.

“Extreme brutality is being carried out here. Imran Khan is being denied meetings with his lawyers, while his sisters are also being barred from seeing him,” Raja said as he sat surrounded by party workers outside the jail.

Earlier on June 14, Khan was taken to a hospital in Islamabad for treatment of his ailing right eye and later shifted back to the prison.

On June 25, the PTI had called for Khan’s transfer to a hospital and put his solitary confinement to an immediate end.

“We demand restoration of former PM Imran Khan’s right to hold weekly meetings with family members, lawyers and political associates,” the party said in a statement then.