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Pakistan has put the capital Islamabad under lockdown as 1000’s of supporters of jailed former prime minister Imran Khan marched towards the town to demand his release, in the newest threat to the legitimacy of the military-backed government.
Protesters from across the country are descending on Islamabad in support of Khan, who stays a widely popular figure in Pakistan and was imprisoned last yr on corruption charges.
He has been acquitted or received bail in five cases, but faces criminal charges in greater than 100 others, starting from graft to terrorism, in keeping with his party. Khan has denied all of the fees, which his supporters say are politically motivated.
The newest protests, which began on Sunday, are the most important within the country since elections in February, when candidates loyal to Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party won probably the most seats but were blocked from power by the military and traditional dynastic parties.
Lots of of PTI members have also been imprisoned since May 2023, after riots that targeted military installations.
Khan’s party has demanded the federal government, now led by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, release “political prisoners” and “return the stolen mandate”, a reference to allegations that the election was rigged against the PTI, in keeping with a press release posted to Khan’s X account on Tuesday.
Sharif’s military-backed government has responded by bringing Islamabad to a standstill for the second time in as many months. Police sealed off primary routes on Saturday with shipping containers, and riot police and paramilitary forces were deployed throughout the town.
Mobile and web services were also blocked in “areas with security concerns”, in keeping with an interior ministry statement on X, which is banned in Pakistan and only accessible via a virtual private network.
“Whoever comes, you could arrest them, don’t allow them to go,” Mohsin Naqvi, Pakistan’s interior minister, told a gathering of cops on Saturday that was broadcast on television.
Islamabad’s High Court last week also ruled the PTI gathering as illegal. Officials have banned gatherings of 5 or more people for 2 months.
Authorities also closed lots of the roads leading out of Lahore, Khan’s hometown and political stronghold, as they hope to throttle convoys headed towards the capital 400km away. Local authorities have dug trenches into motorways in other parts of the country.
The PTI estimated a minimum of 3,000 party members, including three parliamentarians, had been arrested since last week. Pakistan’s interior ministry didn’t reply to a request for comment.
Despite the authorities’ efforts, roads leading into Islamabad were full of 1000’s of supporters carrying PTI flags on Monday, and videos on social media showed protesters using tractors to remove containers from the roads.
“This can be a case of a critical mass of the population rejecting any notion of a public mandate for the federal government,” said Michael Kugelman, a fellow on the Wilson Center think-tank in Washington.
The protesters “are coming out to call for Khan’s release and condemn the federal government’s policies, but at the foundation of their anger is what they regard because the illegitimate government”.
The march is the newest sign of political instability in Pakistan, as Sharif’s government grapples with multiple insurgencies in resource-rich provinces along the border with Afghanistan.
Maleeha Lodhi, Pakistan’s former ambassador to the US and UN, said the federal government’s inability to satisfy the PTI’s grievances risked becoming a “fatal distraction” amid a deteriorating security situation.
Last week, a minimum of 70 people were killed in sectarian fighting in north-west Pakistan. A separate series of terrorist attacks in Balochistan have shaken the arrogance of Chinese and other foreign investors.
The lockdown of Islamabad also coincided with a state visit on Monday by Belarus’s President Alexander Lukashenko, in a further embarrassment for Sharif’s administration because it seeks to court trade and investment for its cash-strapped economy.
“Hitting Pakistan’s overall economical stability is not any service to Pakistan,” Jam Kamal Khan, the commerce minister, wrote on X, criticising the PTI protests.
