{"id":5209,"date":"2024-07-15T17:27:02","date_gmt":"2024-07-15T11:42:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/?p=5209"},"modified":"2024-07-15T17:27:02","modified_gmt":"2024-07-15T11:42:02","slug":"pakistan-government-to-seek-ban-of-ex-pm-khans-party","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/pakistan-government-to-seek-ban-of-ex-pm-khans-party\/","title":{"rendered":"Pakistan government to seek ban of ex-PM Khan’s party"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

Pakistan’s government will seek to ban the political party of jailed ex-prime minister Imran Khan, the information minister said Monday, days after a series of court decisions that favoured the former leader.<\/p>\n

Khan was jailed in the run-up to a February election, and his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party was targeted by a crackdown analysts say was a result of his defiance against the country’s powerful military.<\/p>\n

An alliance of parties considered close to the military came to power after the polls — marred by allegations of rigging — but crucial court decisions last week ruled in Khan’s favour.<\/p>\n

“The federal government will move a case to ban the PTI (Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf),” Information Minister Attaullah Tarar told reporters, saying the case would be taken to the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

“We believe that there is credible evidence that PTI should be banned,” he said, citing allegations against Khan, including leaking state secrets and inciting riots.<\/p>\n

“We will vigorously defend this case and spare no effort to contest it,” he added.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for the PTI told AFP that the party “will not tolerate” the government’s effort to ban it.<\/p>\n

“PTI has become stronger than before. We will face it,” Raoof Hasan said.<\/p>\n

In a landmark ruling on Friday, the Supreme Court granted the PTI more parliamentary seats, after party members were forced to run as independents in the February 8 election.<\/p>\n

Khan’s conviction for illegal marriage — which carried a seven-year sentence — was then overturned by an Islamabad court on Saturday but he remains jailed over other cases.<\/p>\n

A UN panel of experts found this month that Khan’s detention “had no legal basis and appears to have been intended to disqualify him from running for political office”.<\/p>\n

The “prosecution was not grounded in law and was reportedly instrumentalised for a political purpose,” it said, calling for his immediate release after nearly a year in jail.<\/p>\n

Khan served as prime minister from 2018 to 2022, when he was ousted after falling out with the military establishment, which wields huge influence over civilian politics.<\/p>\n

He waged a campaign of defiance against the generals, who directly ruled Pakistan for decades, accusing them of being behind an assassination attempt that wounded him.<\/p>\n

Khan was banned from running in the February election due to a graft conviction.<\/p>\n

Despite the setbacks, candidates loyal to PTI secured more seats than any other party, but were kept from power by the alliance pact.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pakistan’s government will seek to ban the political party of jailed ex-prime minister Imran Khan, the information minister said Monday, days after a series of court decisions that favoured the former leader. Khan was jailed in the run-up to a February election, and his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party was targeted by a crackdown analysts say […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5210,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5209"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5209"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5209\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5211,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5209\/revisions\/5211"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}