Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) founder and former Prime Minister Imran Khan has complained to the Chief Justice of Pakistan and the head of the constitutional bench that none of the numerous petitions filed by him and his party regarding violations of human rights and electoral laws during the last 18 months have been heard in the Supreme Court.
In a letter to Chief Justice of Pakistan Yahya Afridi and the head of the Supreme Court’s constitutional bench, Justice Aminuddin, the PTI founder also criticized the government for making laws to target his party.
The letter is accompanied by ‘evidence’ of the government’s obstinacy, including a list of party workers who went missing, were injured or died during the alleged state crackdown.
The hundreds of pages of the letter and its annexure contain photographs, medical reports, court orders and petitions, press clippings and other relevant documents that the PTI leader believes corroborate his claims.
In the letter, he claimed that 10,000 PTI supporters were arrested between November 24 and 27 last year.
The letter also attached a list of 42 PTI workers who were allegedly injured or killed during the operation to disperse protesters from Islamabad’s Red Zone, as well as a list of 75 people who had been ‘missing’ for long periods.
Furthermore, the PTI founder claimed that he was kept in solitary confinement from October 3 to October 25 last year and was deprived of essential privileges and was treated ‘humiliatingly’.
He also said that his meetings with his family and legal team were restricted on the pretext of security.
Imran Khan then named his party leaders facing long-term imprisonment, including Mian Mahmood-ul-Rashid, Senator Ijaz Chaudhry, Dr Yasmin Rashid, Omar Sarfraz Cheema and Shah Mehmood Qureshi.
He criticised the alleged censorship of content in favour of the PTI on social and mainstream media, calling it a violation of fundamental rights enshrined in Article 19 of the Constitution.
The founding chairman of the PTI also pointed to the alleged rigging in last year’s general elections and said that the 26th Constitutional Amendment was brought to weaken the judiciary.
He also criticised the military trials of over 100 civilians, saying that the Supreme Court has already declared such cases illegal.
The letter requests the Chief Justice to use all the powers available to the Supreme Court to end the state’s suppression of democracy.
