Incarcerated Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) founder Imran Khan on Thursday described his party’s planned rally in Lahore this weekend (Saturday) as a “do or die” moment, as he hoped it would attract “historic” numbers.
In recent days, several leaders of the PTI have maintained that they would stage the public gathering at Lahore’s Minar-e-Pakistan regardless of whether or not they get permission, as Punjab government officials have yet to formally grant them a no-objection certificate for it. In the lead-up of the rally, the PTI has alleged hundreds of its workers and supporters have been arrested as a means of pressuring them to abandon the gathering.
Speaking to journalists on the sidelines of a hearing into the £190 million case at Adiala Jail, Khan maintained the nation would come out regardless of any obstacles placed in their path. “I have been in jail for 15 months and am ready to stay in jail even more,” he claimed. “People should not be afraid of going to jail,” he said, maintaining the PTI had the constitutional right to assemble.
“I ask the nation to come out for their future on Sept. 21 in Lahore,” he said. “The Supreme Court is the last institution from which people have expectations. If the Supreme Court is also destroyed, Pakistan will become a banana republic,” he added, referring to proposed constitutional amendments, which he said required threadbare discussion before they could be adopted.
“To destroy the Supreme Court is to destroy democracy, and to destroy democracy is to destroy freedom. When freedom is destroyed, people become slaves,” he said, alleging this was all being done to give “extensions” to “three umpires.” The only way out of Pakistan’s current crisis, he claimed, was attracting foreign investment and this required the support of overseas Pakistanis.
“[President Asif Ali] Zardari and [PMLN President] Nawaz Sharif ran out [of the country] twice, and now they will run out again, everyone knows that their money is lying outside,” he claimed, also questioning the revenue sources of Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi, who he alleged had $5 million parked abroad.