Muhammad Asim Gilani
ISLAMABAD — Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Central Information Secretary Sheikh Waqas Akram lambasted the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) for threatening to boycott the Lord’s Test match after Sky Sports broadcast an interview with unlawfully imprisoned former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s sons Kasim and Suleiman Khan.
He said that the PCB’s threat that the Pakistan team would not return to the field after lunch if the interview was broadcast was an alarming and shameful example of how state institutions are being dragged into political victimisation.
In a strongly-worded statement issued on Friday by PTI Central Media Department (CMD), Sheikh Waqas said it was deeply unfortunate that instead of concentrating on cricket, the PCB unnecessarily interfered with a legitimate media interview simply because it involved the sons of Imran Khan.
PTI CIS asserted that the PCB completely degraded itself from an independent sports institution into an obedient political puppet of an illegitimate and fear-stricken regime.
He said that in the interview of Imran Khan’s sons on Sky Sports, which was conducted by renowned former England captain and respected broadcaster Mike Atherton, Khan’s sons merely raised serious and pertinent concerns about their father’s health and well-being.
“The PCB should answer the nation as to why an interview with Imran Khan’s sons became such a threat that it considered preventing Pakistan’s players from taking the field at Lord’s, he asked,” adding, “Is the PCB now a cricket board or has it been turned into another arm of the political regime?”
He said, “Look at the depth of their love for Pakistan, as even while expressing profound concern for their father’s safety, Khan’s sons categorically stated that they would always support the Pakistan cricket team against any team in the world, including England.”
“Yet a frightened and insecure government has treated their interview as a political threat rather than respecting their right to speak about their father’s health,” he added.
“Imran Khan is not an ordinary politician or a corrupt and self-serving figure like those illegally occupying the halls of power today,” Waqas reminded. He stated that PTI founder is a World Cup-winning icon and a globally revered statesman, and therefore neither the PCB nor the fraudulently imposed regime can silence his voice or conceal his plight from the world.
PTI CIS noted that international organisations have repeatedly raised serious concerns over Imran Khan’s detention and treatment, as reflected in reports and statements issued by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and Amnesty International.
Waqas said the government’s failure to comply with the Supreme Court’s recent direction concerning Imran Khan’s medical treatment, followed by his return to prison, had further intensified legitimate concerns about the rule of law and fundamental rights.
PTI CIS stated that the question is not whether the PCB can silence Imran Khan’s sons, it cannot, but why the government is so frightened of their voices that even a cricket match at Lord’s is being dragged into political censorship. He said that neither the PCB nor the fraudulently imposed regime possesses the power to silence the truth.
Waqas warned that the current regime has already pushed Pakistan into a dead-end alley evident from soaring lawlessness, back-breaking inflation, rampant youth unemployment, and widespread public anger.
PTI CIS asserted that sanity must prevail without further delay, and the current rulers must step down, release Pakistan’s most popular leader, and restore to him the constitutional powers and public mandate entrusted to him by the people. He said that Imran Khan possesses the vision, foresight, leadership and public trust required to steer the nation out of its current deepening quagmire.
“Pakistan cannot afford to keep its most popular political leader behind bars anymore while the country sinks deeper into crisis, he warned.” PTI CIS said that the regime must stop treating every dissenting voice as an enemy, respect the Constitution, restore the people’s mandate and allow Pakistan to move forward.
