ISLAMABAD: United States (US) Congressman Joe Wilson on Thursday announced he was drafting a bill that would aim to ban those in power in Pakistan for “wrongful” imprisonment of former prime minister Imran Khan.
The development came as Khan, who has been in jail since August 2023 on a slew of charges he says are politically motivated, said he had written a third open letter to Pakistan Army Chief Gen. Asim Munir, highlighting the alleged shrinking space for democracy in the country due to rights abuses and “rigging” of last year’s general election.
The former prime minister was ousted from power in April 2022 via a parliamentary vote after falling out with Pakistan’s powerful army generals. Khan blames the military for colluding with his political rivals to orchestrate his ouster, a charge the military denies and reiterates that it does not interfere in political matters.
The army chief has denied receiving any letters from Khan and said he would dispatch them to PM Shehbaz Sharif if he did receive any, the state-run Radio Pakistan broadcaster reported on Thursday, following Gen. Munir’s informal interaction with reporters at a luncheon hosted for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Islamabad.
“I am grateful to share that I am drafting the PAKISTAN DEMOCRACY ACT to ban from the United States those in the Pakistan military, government responsible for the wrongful persecution and imprisonment of Imran Khan,” Wilson said on X.
Khan fell out with Pakistan army’s top leaders in the lead-up to his ouster from the PM’s office and has since led an unprecedented campaign of defiance against the all-powerful army, which has ruled the South Asian country for nearly half of its 75-year history, and even when not in power, it is considered the invisible guiding hand in politics. The army has in recent years said it no longer interferes in politics.
In his third letter to the army chief shared on X, Khan said he was not asking for any concessions for himself or his party, but only wanted restoration of the army’s reputation in the interest of Pakistan, saying there is “no harmony between the people and the army due to the policies of the establishment.” He also called the army’s repeated denial of interference in politics an “insult to the intelligence of the nation.”
“In this era of social media, nothing can be hidden, every child of the country knows that the army chief runs the system of this country,” he said, adding that democracy functions on morals.
“Democracy can only run if the government has moral strength. After 30 years, democracy was gradually restored in Pakistan, the judiciary became independent through continuous struggle and the media became somewhat free and the country was moving toward improvement. But first our government was removed through a conspiracy, then not only a fake government was imposed but the constitution was broken to impose it on the country again.”
Tensions between Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party and the army have remained at fever-pitch especially after Khan’s arrest on May 9, 2023, in a land graft case that sparked countrywide protests. Angry supporters carrying the PTI’s flags attacked and ransacked military installations in an unprecedented backlash against the army.
The military has called the day of the protests a “Black Day” and vowed to punish those involved. Since then, at least 5,000 of Khan’s supporters have been arrested, and dozens of his top party leaders have defected after they faced increasing pressure from the military establishment to do so, according to his supporters. The army denies the allegations.
Thousands of Khan supporters marched toward Islamabad in November 2024 to demand his release from prison. The government says four troops were killed in the ensuing clashes by Khan supporters, a charge the PTI denies and says its loyalists were instead shot and killed.
