Islamabad, Pakistan: Another letter from former prime minister Imran Khan has been published in UK media.
Khan’s Exclusive Letter from prison has been published by the UK-based “Telegraph” without publishing a “disclaimer” from the media organization. In this letter, Imran Khan called the General Elections 2024 “rigged elections”, blaming the Pakistani military for operating against his party and claiming that terrorism has reemerged in Pakistan under sitting military leadership. However, his allegations seem not only self-contradictory rather reconfirming the confidence that Western media publish whatever allegations Imran Khan can utter would surely be published. The dissection of this letter would surely help students of media ethics to understand how Western Media creates narratives and propagates whatever it wishes to spread.
His letter is of course a bunch of allegations he has been leveling against the state of Pakistan since the time he was voted out from power through a Vote of No Confidence. However, the most interesting part of the publication of his letter is a photo published in the middle of the article of COAS of Pakistan Gen Asim Munir with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi.
Since Iran and the Iranian President are considered adversaries of the Western World and symbols attacks on Israel, it was the perfect move of the newspaper Telegraph to embed/include this photo of COAS Gen Asim Munir shaking hands with Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi although the whole letter/article has nothing to do with Pakistan-Iran relations or even anything related to foreign affairs however this photo may be included to create feelings of hatred among Western readers against Pakistani Army and sending a propaganda pulse to Europeans that Pakistani Army is part and parcel of actions of Iran taken against Israel and Western interests.
It may be mentioned Iranian President was on a state visit to Pakistan recently (April 21, 2024) and he also met COAS Gen Asim Munir during his visit the photo used by the Telegraph was released by the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) after this meeting. Publication of this photo that is out of proportion and out of context having no connotation or denotation with the text of the letter of Imran Khan is enough to indicate that the publication of this letter has a deep-rooted idea of portraying Pakistan’s Army and its chief as partners of Iran that according to western narrative are responsible for attacking Israel and are symbols of “barbaric and autocratic rule”.
The ending note of the article states “Imran Khan is the leader of the Pakistan-Tehreek e Insaf (PTI) party. He is serving a prison sentence for controversial corruption charges”. Surprisingly, the newspaper exposed its editorial policy that it does not believe in the legal and judicial process of Pakistani courts and announced decisions against Imran Khan were called “controversial”. This is the same narrative Western media always express against Western adversaries like China, Iran, Russia, and all other countries that do not bow down to Western powers. Now Pakistan without any iota of doubt has again been added to this list. Discrediting the judicial system of a country by calling legal decisions “controversial” exposes the biasness of the newspaper against Pakistan and can be challenged at any forum dealing with issues of media ethics. The usage of the diction of “controversial” also shows the editorial recklessness of the newspaper because it could write that opposition or politicians or PTI consider decisions as “controversial” but the newspaper took the responsibility that it does not respect decisions given by Pakistani courts and it has biases against Pakistani judicial system.
This letter is a bunch of allegations leveled against former Prime Minister Imran Khan against Pakistan, against Pakistani judiciary, and against Pakistani military. I believe the newspaper has yet to contact Pakistani institutions to take their version over the blunt allegations of Imran Khan.
The most interesting part of the letter is in which Imran Khan talks about the re-emergence of terrorism in Pakistan and blames the sitting government for this.
In his letter, he holds the state of Pakistan responsible for the “Upsurge in terrorism” stating that the military is responsible for the “upsurge in terrorism and a growing alienation in Balochistan where the issue of enforced disappearances is growing in severity”.
During Imran’s government in November 2021, Pakistan and the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) signed an agreement on a month-long ceasefire. The Pakistani government said that the negotiations with the TTP were taking place under the ambit of the Pakistani Constitution.
In February 2023, even after coming out of power, Imran Khan defended his decision to resettle TTP inside Pakistan.
It is not a secret that Imran Khan when he was in power and even after leaving office accepted more than once that he invited terrorists of TTP to resettle in Pakistan with their families and he took responsibility in several statements that he invited them along with their families comprising over 25,000 persons and he did it on the advice of the interim government of Afghan Taliban. Since then, everybody knows that Pakistan is again at war with TTP which was virtually eliminated by armed forces through several special operations. It is also not secret that the issue of disappearance of people in Balochistan was a hot issue during his tenure and he more than once told the media that the disappearance of persons from Balochistan is linked with terrorist outfits like BLA and most terrorists who were painted as “disappeared” either lived outside Pakistan or had been killed in exchange of fire when they attacked civilians and military posts and conveys.
Interestingly, Khan in his letter links again support from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) with the release of all political prisoners including those being held for trial under military courts. Is there any link between IMF financial support to Pakistan and under-trial prisoners?
He also said in the letter that “the constitutional functioning of state institutions must be restored” while referring to cases of the May 9 Mutiny under trial in Military Courts. It may be mentioned that trial under military courts is very much part of Pakistan’s Constitution and the higher judiciary has explained this point time and again therefore there is no violation of the “constitutional functioning of state institutions” as claimed by Imran Khan.
In his letter, Imran Khan discredited February 8, 2024, General Elections without mentioning that his party had formed the government in KPK province through the same “rigged” General Elections 2024 and got the position of “Leader of Opposition in National Assembly”.
The timing of publication is curious as it appeared almost a week before the first anniversary of the May 9 Mutiny that was allegedly planned by PTI against the state institutions of the country. It is expected that such allegations from Imran Khan will keep appearing in Western media without disclaimers in forthcoming weeks and those who are responsible for media management in Pakistan should be ready to respond to allegations or to follow the path of “keep quiet” and let the hurricane of allegations against state institutions let go away.
