ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) leader Shireen Mazari has sought the United Nations’ intervention to cease the government’s “misuse of the blasphemy law” against Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan and senior leadership of the party.
The letter comes days after police booked Khan, party’s senior vice president Fawad Chaudhry and Awami Muslim League (AML) president Sheikh Rasheed Ahmad, among 150 people, on blasphemy charges over sloganeering against Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and his delegation in Medina.
The first information report (FIR), lodged after midnight in Medina Town police station in Faisalabad, the home town of Minister for Interior Rana Sanaullah Khan, nominated some “100 to 150” for purportedly violating the sanctity of Masjid al-Nabawi, hurting the sentiments of Muslims around the globe, insulting Islamic and violating its code of conduct at one of the holiest places in the religion, and hurling abuses and chanting slogans of thieves and traitors.
Following the filing of the complaint, Sanaullah vowed to arrest Khan in the case.
Calling the former prime minister a fitna (mischief), Sanaullah, in a statement, said those who “planned” the sloganeering “will be taken to task”.
“Imran Khan will definitely be arrested,” he added.
Dated May 2, the letter has been addressed to the UN’s special rapporteur on extrajudicial summary or arbitrary executions, special rapporteur on the freedom of opinion and expression, and special rapporteur on the freedom of religion and belief.
It said Pakistan had been engulfed in a political crisis ever since Khan was ousted in the aftermath of a “regime change scheme” and replaced with a government led by Sharif who has been named in “multiple money-laundering and corruption cases and is out on bail”.
Mazari recalled that in March, Khan’s government had concluded in a cabinet meeting that there had been a “US-backed regime-change conspiracy” against the former prime minister assisted by the military “establishment” and “opposition political parties”.
“This conclusion was premised upon the content of a cipher message received from Pakistan’s envoy in Washington DC detailing a formal meeting between Mr Donald Lu of the State Department with the envoy and 3 other members of the embassy along with note-takers on both sides.”
The cipher message reflected Washington’s anger over Khan’s visit to Russia just as the Ukraine conflict was about to begin. It said if the no-trust motion against Khan succeeded, “all would be forgiven”.
Mazari then mentioned that the events that followed included the submission of the no-confidence motion, the National Assembly deputy speaker’s rejection of the motion and the Supreme Court’s intervention in the matter which ultimately resulted in Khan’s ouster.
“Since then, there has been a groundswell of public anger reflected in huge rallies by Imran Khan’s parties across the country as he leads a movement for the restoration of democracy and sovereignty of Pakistan,” the letter said.
However, it added, the government, “backed by the establishment”, had responded with repressive measures.
Subsequently, the former rights minister drew UNHCR’s attention to what she called three major human rights violations conducted against Imran.
“One: A complete blackout of media coverage by state-owned media as well as almost all private channels through a carrot (advertisements) and stick (establishment). In this connection, the government-controlled PTCL, which provides cable connections to cable operators, has denied this access to any private channel seen covering Khan’s massive rallies.”
The second violation highlighted by Mazari was the registration of blasphemy cases against Khan and his aides in connection with the incident in Medina where Sharif and his ministers were heckled by a crowd of pilgrims.
She argued that it was not a planned incident as similar treatment had taken place with opposition members at other places as well. “To use the Madina incident as an excuse to file charges of blasphemy means endangering lives of Imran and party’s leadership,” Mazari wrote.
“It also provides for making immediate arrests and one member of the NA from the PTI-allied party was immediately taken into custody on arrival at Islamabad airport on blasphemy charges.”
The letter added that even though a police case was not registered, Minister for Interior Khan had warned the former prime minister and his supporters of arrests.
Subsequently, Mazari requested the United Nations Special Procedures mechanism to intervene with Islamabad to immediately cease the misuse of the blasphemy law against political opponents, stop media censorship, and stop denying the right to peaceful protest through repressive measures and blocking of protest sites.
