Dawn.com<\/em>, Imran urged the apex court to safeguard his party\u2019s \u201cright to liberty, to associate, assemble and speak\u201d as guaranteed under the Constitution.<\/p>\n\u201cThis denial of fundamental rights does not assume the colour of lawful due process only because the power to arrest and prosecute available to the state is the chosen weapon of assault,\u201d read the letter.<\/p>\n
Imran highlighted that the power to prosecute and arrest was being used in a blatant attempt to \u201cengineer and skew the political landscape of the country\u201d.<\/p>\n
He said anyone who was associated with PTI was being targeted through multiple criminal cases to keep them imprisoned, adding that new cases were lodged against party leaders after they received bail.<\/p>\n
\u201cOften several first information reports (FIRs) are registered against persons affiliated with the PTI in respect to the same event,\u201d the letter read. \u201cThe same persons are also implicated in successive FIRs [\u2026] across the country.\u201d<\/p>\n
Decrying that \u201ca fresh wave of state oppression\u201d was unleashed against PTI, Imran said undisclosed FIRs and police reports were kept \u201cin reserve\u201d to re-arrest any bailed-out person affiliated with PTI.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a situation that demands judicial notice [\u2026],\u201d the letter read. \u201cIt would however be abdication of judicial responsibility to deny the facts and to assume that we are living through normal times.\u201d<\/p>\n
Imran said judges could not turn a blind eye to the reality \u201ceven though justice may be blind\u201d. He added that the Supreme Court could not be unaware of the disappearances of people affiliated with the PTI or its 2018 government.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese persons have re-appeared and made press conferences that are clearly tutored,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He also said there was \u201cno possibility\u201d of fair and free general elections on Feb 8 if the Supreme Court did not intervene to halt the widespread arrests and abductions of party leaders and workers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fact the political landscape is being set up through coercion [\u2026] to favour one set of political actors that have the blessings of the powers that be against the PTI [\u2026] is breeding disgust in a large number of Pakistanis, not restricted to the supporters of PTI,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Imran also said that print and electronic media were being coerced to generate \u201ctutored content and opinions\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe targets and the beneficiaries of this coercion have changed from time to time but the ability of the powers to be coerce and overwhelm the constitutional process has remained a menacing constant,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Towards the end of the letter, the former PM urged CJP to issue orders for halting the \u201cpractice of successive arrests of person granted bail in known cases\u201d and to set up a commission to probe the disappearances of journalists and political workers.<\/p>\n
Imran also urged the top judge to direct the federal government, the provincial governments, and Election Commission of Pakistan to ensure the PTI was allowed to carry out political meetings and gatherings without any discrimination.<\/p>\n
He also to ensure the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority allowed coverage for PTI leaders without any discrimination.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Incarcerated PTI Chairman Imran Khan on Thursday wrote a letter to Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Qazi Faez Esa, requesting the top judge to protect the party\u2019s fundamental rights. The PTI has alleged that it is being stopped from carrying out political activities in the run up to the general election and several of its […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30070,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.dawn.com\/large\/2023\/11\/3020535407ad7f9.jpg?r=205402","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-top-news"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30069"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30069\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}