Yesterday, 62 members of the U.S. House of Representatives—including political celebrities AOC and Ilhan Omar—issued a letter to President Joe Biden urging him to use Washington, D.C.’s influence with Islamabad to free Imran Khan and other opposition detainees.
These legislators are voices in a growing chorus abroad expressing support for the former prime minister. So far, a group of British parliamentarians, Amnesty International, the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, billionaire Richard Branson have all come out on Khan’s side.
Khan, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf founder and scorned ally of the establishment, has been in jail since August last year. He is facing at least 150 cases—an absurdity that even his most strident detractors and former victims privately concede. His wife was released today, after 264 days in prison, while two of his sisters remain imprisoned.
Of course, it is not Khan and his family alone who are fettered away. The establishment has declared scores of his jailed supporters as terrorists, and legions of his virtual army as “digital terrorists.” It is this kind of wholesale domestic repression that is provoking international response.
His incarceration has left Khan’s flock without a shepherd, impeding their aim to escalate noise and nuisance to the point that could bring the establishment to heel. To thwart Khan’s “haqeeqi azadi,” his party’s activists have been disappeared, Twitter (or X) has been banned, and news channels have been warned off from uttering his name. Despite this clamping down, Khan’s support abroad is unparalleled in Pakistan’s history.
Instigated by Khan supporters (particularly the overseas lot), the growing global condemnation of Pakistan’s establishment is unprecedented, scorching. In their letter to Biden, the U.S. lawmakers have questioned the “delay” in announcing visa bans and asset seizures targeting Pakistani elites allegedly engaged in human rights abuses. Among the questions put to Biden: “Does the U.S. maintain relationships with military and intelligence officials in Pakistan who have been credibly accused of violating democratic principles and human rights, including Chief of Army Staff Asim Munir?”
Confined behind bars, Khan is rattling cages like never before. In terms of facts and fiction, proofs and propaganda, it seems the establishment may finally have met its match.