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Analysis: Imran Khan—and His Supporters—Face Threat of Military Trials
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On May 9, paramilitary forces arrested former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan on charges in an ongoing corruption case. The popular leader has spent much of the past year railing against the current government and Pakistan’s military establishment, which wields significant influence in the country’s politics. In the hours after his arrest, many of Khan’s supporters erupted in protest. Some demonstrators attacked the army’s headquarters in Rawalpindi, as well as other military and government buildings.
On May 9, paramilitary forces arrested former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan on charges in an ongoing corruption case. The popular leader has spent much of the past year railing against the current government and Pakistan’s military establishment, which wields significant influence in the country’s politics. In the hours after his arrest, many of Khan’s supporters erupted in protest. Some demonstrators attacked the army’s headquarters in Rawalpindi, as well as other military and government buildings.
Khan’s arrest set into motion a new level of public defiance against Pakistan’s military. Many of his supporters already saw their leader as a target of the political establishment. Khan blamed the then-army chief for his removal by parliamentary vote last year and has accused the current army chief of orchestrating his May arrest. The scenes captured on the night of May 9 were unprecedented, from a woman rattling the gates of the army headquarters to a crowd setting a top army official’s house on fire. Following the protests, Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party has crumbled, putting the opposition leader on the backfoot in his dogged campaign to return to power in elections supposed to take place later this year.
Since May 9, authorities have detained thousands of Khan’s supporters on suspicion of their involvement in the destruction of state and military property. Pakistan’s government has accused PTI of inciting violence and taken swift steps to ensure that protesters are punished by approving the use of military tribunals overseen by army officials. Amid the mass arrests, numerous PTI leaders have resigned, distancing themselves from Khan and in some cases voicing support for the military. All of this suggests that the Pakistan Army is reasserting its dominance after public criticism from Khan and his supporters, replaying a familiar scene of military intervention in Pakistani politics.
Khan’s arrest and the protests that followed marked an escalation in the cat-and-mouse game between the Pakistani government and the former prime minister, who has been pushing to get back in power since he was removed in April 2022. In January, two provincial assemblies controlled by PTI were dissolved in a bid to push Pakistan’s government to hold early elections. Khan has argued that the government’s failure to hold elections in the two provinces, which should have happened within 90 days of the dissolutions according the constitution, is a ploy to keep him from returning to power. Pakistan’s election committee has said elections will be held on Oct. 8.
However, the window for Khan’s return to power may be closing, as he also faces the prospect of a military trial; the government has accused him of orchestrating the May 9 protests, including the attacks on military facilities. Pakistani Defense Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif said the military courts are a necessary punishment for rebellion against the state. “Whatever was happening on that day, it was a political party attacking the Pakistan army or air force,” Asif said in an interview with Foreign Policy. “We are acting in response to that war which was declared on [the] Pakistan army on May 9.”
If history is any indication, the Pakistan Army will not take the continued challenge from Khan lightly, said Aqil Shah, an associate professor of South Asian studies at the University of Oklahoma and the author of The Army and Democracy: Military Politics in Pakistan. “They’re very capable of coming down hard and dismantling,” Shah said, referring to the military’s track record with political parties that fall out of favor with the institution. In the past, the military has taken over governments led by members of both the Pakistan People’s Party and the Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N), the party of the current prime minister.
To justify the use of the military tribunals against PTI and its supporters, the government has pointed to two pieces of legislation, the Pakistan Army Act, primarily used to try military personnel, and the Official Secrets Act, which serves to protect classified information and areas. Protesters who have been arrested on terrorism charges will be tried according to the Anti-Terrorism Act—a law intended to prevent terrorism and sectarian violence that also encompasses crimes deemed to disrupt public life, such as arson and armed resistance against law enforcement. Last week, Pakistan’s law and justice minister said that 74 cases had been sent to military courts. Some 4,000 people have been registered on terrorism charges, according to an earlier statement by the country’s interior minister.
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The use of anti-terrorism courts has become increasingly common in Pakistan, where the criminal justice system is chronically overburdened. The courts expedite trials for heinous offenses, ostensibly to prevent terrorism and sectarian violence. They were established in 1997 and used in the years that followed as Pakistan struggled with violent extremism within its borders. But since then, long-standing issues within Pakistan’s justice system have led to a reliance on the anti-terrorism courts to secure convictions, which critics say has also increased their potential for political abuse. Since Khan’s ouster, he has been accused of terrorism and dozens of other allegations, including contempt of court and corruption.
Pakistan’s military courts were established in 1952 for trials of members of the military. An order from the federal government also allowed the courts to try civilians in narrowly defined circumstances, such as attacking military installations and inciting mutiny. Military courts have been used for civilian trials at various points in Pakistan’s history, including under martial law and after the gruesome attack against a military-run school in Peshawar in 2015. Since the recent arrests, three petitions have been filed against the use of military courts for trials of civilians, including one by Khan himself.
Pakistan’s military trials are not open to the public, meaning the process behind these convictions often remains unclear, said Reema Omer, a legal advisor for the International Commission of Jurists. The threshold for evidence in these courts, as well as the circumstances around obtained confessions, is also murky. “From the charges to the judgments, it’s opaque,” Omer said. Those convicted by military courts can contest the case before military leaders and then challenge the jurisdiction of the case in higher courts. But Omer added that civilian courts are reluctant to interfere in military court judgments because of the influence that the army wields in Pakistan.
That same fear applies to many attorneys, said Asad Jamal, a lawyer who previously defended a client in a military court. “It’s not something which lawyers want to do because of the complexity in such cases … and if you are defending, it means that you are confronting the army,” he said. Anti-terrorism courts receive less attention because they have come to be seen as a widely used part of the criminal justice system, Jamal added, but they also operate according to different rules and are “only meant for wreaking vengeance.”
Although Pakistan’s government argues that legislation exists to allow for military trials in special circumstances, subjecting civilians to these courts has raised concerns among some lawyers, who say they undermine due process and other rights afforded under international law and Pakistan’s constitution.
Local and international human rights groups have also expressed concerns about trying civilians in military courts. “Problems in the criminal justice system, such as low conviction rates or the large backlog of cases, need long-term structural solutions that do not impinge upon people’s right to [a] fair trial and due process,” wrote Maheen Pracha, the senior manager of research and communication at the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, in a statement to FP. Her organization worries that the use of specialized courts could exacerbate issues with Pakistan’s criminal justice system. “In the long term, outsourcing justice is not the answer,” Pracha wrote.
Yet Pakistan’s leadership was quick to get behind the use of military courts to prosecute Khan’s supporters. Because of the army’s history of involvement in politics, civilian governments often act in the interest of self-preservation, Shah said. The military establishment derives social legitimacy from supposed threats to national security, and the government has emphasized the desecration of sites of martyrs in its justification for using military courts. “It has created the rally-around-the-flag effect,” Shah said.
More than 100 former PTI members have already joined a new party, leaving Khan increasingly isolated as he faces a possible military trial, as well as other criminal charges. Despite the mass exodus from his party, the opposition leader continues to voice certainty in his movement, as do some of his confidants. “There is no chance of elimination of PTI from the political scene,” said Babar Awan, the central senior vice president of the party. Meanwhile, Khan himself has denounced the destruction on May 9, claiming the people involved in attacks on government buildings and installations were not affiliated with PTI.
The passionate reaction to Khan’s arrest that day ultimately exemplifies the level of faith people have in the former prime minister, whose followers seemed to believe that he and his party were invincible—at least until May 9. For PTI supporters and party members now facing the possibility of military prosecution, this confidence may prove a miscalculation.
Betsy Joles is a journalist based in Pakistan. Twitter: @BetsyJoles Instagram: @betsyjoles
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The ousted Pakistani leader and his party face dozens of charges he says are politicized—but he hasn’t been arrested yet.
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Imran Khan’s arrest is cycling the country through crisis yet again.
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Reviled for silencing political opponents while in office, the former prime minister gets a muzzle of his own.
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