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PTI leaders arrested over mass mobilisation for Imran Khan’s release

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A convoy under the leadership of Khyber District Chairperson MPA Vidyidk Abdul Ghani Afridi proceeded towards Islamabad for the rally demanding Khan’s release. Khan has been imprisoned for over a year now, despite courts either suspending or overturning all of his prior convictions. – Picture: PTI / X

By Abdul Rahman

Pakistani police announced on Monday September 9 that they had arrested leaders of Pakistan’s Tehreek-e-Insaf Party (PTI), Barrister Gohar Khan, Shoaib Shaheen and Sher Afzal Marwat. Gohar Khan who is the chairperson of PTI and a member of Pakistan’s National Assembly was arrested when leaving a session of the National Assembly.

The arrests came a day after PTI held a massive rally in the capital of Islamabad on Sunday, September 8, demanding the immediate release of its leader and former Prime Minister Imran Khan, who has been incarcerated for over a year now.

The three were arrested for violating the “Peaceful Assembly and Public Order Act” which was signed into law on Sunday by Pakistan’s president Asif Ali Zardari. The law seeks to “regulate public gatherings” in the capital. PTI alleged that the rush passage of the law done in order to prevent it from holding the rally.

The “Peaceful Assembly and Public Order Bill 2024” was passed by both the houses of the parliament in the first week of September at record speed, raising concerns that it was bypassing the basic need to debate its merits. It was first tabled in the Pakistani Senate on September 2 and passed within two days. It was rushed through the lower house or the National Assembly within hours on September 6.

As per the new law, anyone found guilty of “unlawful assembly” in the capital would face up to three years imprisonment and an unspecified amount in fines.

The law requires a week’s notice for any public gathering anywhere in the city, and allows the authorities to designate any area inside the city a “red or high security zone”, prohibiting any kind of gathering there.

Protesters defy repression

Despite the new legal regulations, on Sunday, protesters defied Pakistani security forces’ attempts to stop them from entering the capital and gathered in large numbers, coming from different parts of the country. The security forces had blocked all major entry points into the city, but protesters were able to proceed to the capital by pushing away barriers.

Protesters also clashed with security forces in some areas and according to local reports, several people, including security forces, were injured in the clashes.

The PTI was allowed to organise the rally in the outskirts of Islamabad only after a court intervention.

Khan thanked his supporters for turning out in large numbers despite the hurdles created by the state claiming they “have all broken the shackles of fear to stand up and fight for Haqeeqi Azadi [real freedom]”.

Speakers at the rally demanded the immediate release of Khan and declared that their party won’t tolerate his proposed military trial. PTI leader and the chief minister of Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, Ali Amin Gandapur, claimed that the PTI will move to release Khan if he is not released within two weeks.

Last week, Pakistan military’s spokesperson hinted that Khan may be tried under the Army Act in a military trial in relation to a court martial proceeding against former Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan’s secret agency, chief retired general Faiz Hameed. The claims were repeated by Pakistan’s defense minister Khawaza Asif on Saturday.

Khan was removed from power in a no confidence vote in April 2022. Later, he was charged in over hundred cases ranging from the violation of Pakistan’s “Official Secrets Act” to corruption and arrested on May 9, 2023.

When news broke of his arrest, his supporters took to the streets in several Pakistani cities in a mass protest and stormed different public institutions. Over a hundred people were arrested and many tried in connection to these acts of property destruction and Khan himself also faced further cases in connection to the protests. Days later, Khan was released and then re-arrested in August.

Khan was later convicted and sentenced to various periods in prison in at least three cases: the Toshakhana case, Cypher case and Iddat case. His supporters maintain that Khan’s convictions were politically motivated.

Several of his convictions have been either suspended or overturned by the higher judiciary in the country since then. However, Khan remains in jail pertaining to other cases.

Political persecution

In June, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention found that Khan’s detention was not based in law, claiming that it seemed to be a plot to prevent him from participating in February elections and keep him out of the country’s politics.

It opined that, “appropriate remedy would be to release Mr. Khan immediately” and suggested that he be provided with “enforceable right to compensation and other reparations in accordance with international law”, Al-Jazeera reported.

Sunday’s protests were the first major show of strength by the PTI since the last general elections in February of this year. PTI-affiliated independents won the maximum number of seats in the parliament but decided to sit in the opposition.

The results were a surprise for many, given the allegations of large-scale manipulations of the results against the PTI, with Khan remaining in jail without the right to contest and the PTI not even assigned its electoral symbol by the country’s election commission.

The coalition government, led by Shehbaz Sharif of the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N), later announced its intentions to ban the PTI altogether. The information minister in the Sharif government Attaullah Tarar told the press in July that it is difficult to work with PTI, and accused it of leaking state secrets in public and for violent protests.

This article was first published on Peoples Dispatch