ISLAMABAD: Former Prime Minister Imran Khan, who has been imprisoned for over a year on multiple charges, raised concerns about Pakistan’s democracy in an interview published by a London-based TV channel on Tuesday, calling on the prime minister of the United Kingdom to ensure “freedom and fairness.”
Khan was ousted in a parliamentary no-confidence vote in April 2022 and has been in prison since last August. New charges were filed against him last month after all four convictions against him were either suspended or overturned by courts. The opposition leader says the legal cases are politically motivated and being pushed by his political opponents in the coalition government of PM Shehbaz Sharif, with the backing of the military. Both deny the charge.
The ex-premier’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, which won the most seats in Feb. 8 elections but not enough to form government, has complained about a massive state crackdown against its leaders and supporters before and after the polls, which it says were rigged. Many of Khan’s closest associates are in jail or have left his party, and critics of the government and the army widely complain of intimidation and harassment by state authorities, which reject the allegations.
In questions sent to Khan in prison last month by ITV, a major television network in Britain, he was asked if he wanted UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government to amplify calls for his release.
“We have a collective duty to uphold the values of peace and strive for freedom and fairness for everyone,” Khan was quoted as saying in response, adding that the new British administration faced “tremendous responsibility and high expectations” on the global stage. “Where the UK stands in its commitment to these values will speak volumes.”
Starmer led Britain’s Labour Party to a landslide election victory, and last month became the country’s 58th prime minister, the first leader from the center-left party to win a UK national election since Tony Blair, who won three in a row starting in 1997.
Khan, who says February general elections were manipulated to deprive the PTI of its mandate, asked Starmer and his cabinet to imagine a situation where “their overwhelming victory was stolen.”
“Picture a scenario where a party that barely won 18 seats usurped your mandate, where your party symbols were stripped, and your leaders were imprisoned or tortured until they switched allegiances or left politics altogether,” he said.
“The people of Pakistan yearned for change, for democracy, and for the rule of law to prevail. Their votes were a cry for justice, self-determination, and freedom.”
Khan also painted a bleak picture of his “seven-by-eight-foot death cell” in Rawalpindi Jail, saying he faced constant surveillance and had no privacy. The government denies this and told the Supreme Court in June that Khan had an exercise bike, a separate kitchen, special menu, room cooler, study table and an LED TV.

ISLAMABAD: Petroleum Minister Musadik Malik said on Tuesday his government would keep the gas prices unchanged until winter months of December and January, Pakistani state media reported, amid rising costs of living in Pakistan.
In February this year, Pakistan’s caretaker government had increased the price of natural gas by up to 67 percent for residential consumers in a bid to meet one of the key fiscal tightening conditions of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for the final review of its last bailout program, worth $3 billion, that ended in April.
The gas price for protected consumers category of up to 0.25 cubic hectometers (hm3) and up to 0.9 hm3 was increased to Rs200 from Rs121 and Rs350 from Rs300, or between 40 percent and 67 percent, while the rates for non-protected category consuming up to 0.25 hm3 to above 4 hm3 was raised to Rs500 to Rs4,200, or between 5 percent to 25 percent.
Malik denied reports of any further increase in gas tariff and said the government was striving to avoid placing any additional burden on the people, the state-run APP news agency reported.
“If the need arises to provide relief, we will make decisions in consultation with all provinces and move forward together,” he was quoted as saying. “Our aim is to avoid increasing gas prices.”
Pakistan’s inflation rate surged to a historic high of 38 percent in May 2023, but has since declined to clock in at 11.1 percent in July. The central bank has also revised its inflation forecast upwards from 20-22 percent to 23-25 percent for the current fiscal year due to a hike in energy prices.
Pakistan, which imports most of its energy needs, saw days of protests last month over the rising costs of living, mainly fueled by energy price hikes. The protests prompted Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to announce a three-month, Rs50 billion subsidy for electricity consumers using up to 200 units a month.
Malik said 86 percent consumers using up to 200 units had been given relief from the federal government, while 98 percent of domestic electricity consumers, who used up to 500 units, had been provided relief by the Punjab government, urging other provincial governments to offer similar relief.