The PTI on Saturday expressed grave concern over a report issued by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, Alice Jill Edwards, saying it exposed the “degrading treatment” of party founder and former prime minister Imran Khan during his incarceration at Adiala Jail and amounted to a “blatant violation of international law and fundamental human rights.”
The report, released on Friday, claimed the PTI founder is being held in conditions that could “amount to inhuman or degrading treatment and called on authorities to comply with international norms and standards.”
In a statement issued by PTI’s Central Media Department, the party said the UN report unequivocally confirmed what it has consistently maintained for a long time: that Imran Khan was being subjected to “inhuman, unlawful, and degrading treatment motivated entirely by political vendetta.”
The PTI asserted that the report reaffirmed Imran’s 23 hours of solitary confinement, constant CCTV surveillance, isolation from the outside world, obstruction of meetings with legal counsel and family, denial of religious practice, and deprivation of basic human necessities, which constituted a blatant violation of prison rules and a flagrant breach of international human rights law.
“According to the United Nations, solitary confinement exceeding 15 days falls under the category of psychological torture, while Imran Khan has been subjected to this agonising process for months,” the PTI added in its statement.
The party said that subjecting a 72-year-old suffering from serious medical conditions, a spinal injury and wounds from a prior assassination attempt to such conditions, while denying adequate medical care, amounted to deliberate and calculated cruelty.
PTI demanded the immediate cessation of solitary confinement, the provision of detention conditions consistent with human dignity and international standards, unrestricted access to personal physicians and the removal of all barriers to meetings in strict compliance with judicial orders.
“This matter is no longer just about a political prisoner but has become a test of the credibility of law, justice, and human rights in Pakistan. If the treatment being meted out to Imran Khan is not stopped, it will be considered the worst example of state-sponsored violence,” the statement concluded.
