Civil disobedience movement: Imran Khan’s ‘seven reasons why’

RAWALPINDI: Incarcerated former prime minister Imran Khan has shared a message from Adiala Jail on the need for a civil disobedience movement in the country. Earlier today, the tweet thread, consisting of seven points, has been shared on X, formerly Twitter.

Also read: IT exports defy slow internet, VPN ban; shoot up to $324m

The message announces that Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) will not be launching the civil disobedience movement immediately, rather it will take time and define the framework and timeline of the movement. Previously, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur had said that the party and the provincial leadership was waiting for Imran Khan’s call for the movement. He said that they will launch the movement as soon as the former PTI chairman calls for it.

As per his new post, it appears that Khan is delaying the movement. He has, however, explained seven points which, he believes, necessitate a civil disobedience movement.

• First reason: Delay in elections for Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provincial assemblies in 2023, under the London plan.
  
  
• Second reason: Filing of over “140 cases” against him before May 9, 2023 and the “false-flag operation of May 9”. Khan said that a petition was filed in the Supreme Court against the events by the PTI but it resulted in no action by the then chief justice Qazi Faez Isa. He further stated that that ‘ten thousand’ PTI workers were rounded up, and the leaders were harassed with their homes ransacked.
  
  
• Third reason: PTI chairman alleges that the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sikandar Sultan Raja and former chief justice Isa worked together to take away PTI’s party symbol ‘bat’, which was “tantamount to banning the party”.
  
  
• Fourth reason: Form-47 election fraud – “The testimony of the Commissioner of Rawalpindi confirmed this fraud. But even after that, the justice system remained a silent bystander, and no action was taken.”
  
  
• Fifth reason: Dubbing 26th Constitutional Amendment as the final nail hammered in the coffin of the independence of the judiciary, Khan’s post said that through this amendment the courts were packed with hand-picked judges, “The tactics used to pass these amendments (through parliament) were a farcical exercise.”
  
  
• Sixth reason: Delay in allocation of reserved seats to PTI “is not only contempt of court but also an insult of the public mandate and an assault on democracy”.
  
  
• Seventh reason: Events of November 26 when “bullets rained down on our peaceful and unarmed political workers”, causing death of 12 PTI workers.
  

The former PM concluded his seven points with this statement, “In these circumstances – when all constitutional rights have been taken away from Pakistanis, the Parliament and the Supreme Court have been taken over, the right to peaceful protest has been denied, the very foundations of law and the constitution have been shaken, bullets are being fired at our own citizens, and attempts are being made to pit institutions against the people – the nation is compelled to start a civil disobedience movement.”

Also read: ‘Free Imran Khan’: Grenell, Trump’s envoy for special missions

In a change of pace for PTI, he also wrote, “Although I would welcome leaders from other opposition parties to meet me in jail, I do not expect this government to allow such meetings, as they have not even allowed me to meet people from my own party for the past three months.”

Khan’s statement claims that PTI has always “operated within the constitution and the law.” He said that PTI demands establishment of judicial commissions to investigate the events of May 9, 2023 and November 26, 2024, and the release of under trial prisoners. It is pertinent to mention here that the Supreme Court has already accepted his plea to conduct a judicial inquiry of the May 9 events.