Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Sohail Afridi on Monday called on lawyers in Islamabad to stand up for an independent judiciary as he continued his efforts to rally support for the PTI’s street movement.
The KP CM made the remarks while addressing the legal fraternity at an event organised by the Islamabad Bar Association. After completing a three-day visit to Lahore, Afridi has announced Karachi as his next destination.
“If you do not stand up for an independent judiciary, then future generations will spit on us,” Afridi said.
He urged them to announce a lawyers’ movement, adding that the youth will support them. “Long live resistance,” the chief minister said.
“You must support the PTI founder (Imran Khan) against oppression and barbarity. Whoever’s conscience is alive will stand against the 26th and 27th Constitutional Amendments,” Afridi said.
CM Afridi also stressed that Imran did not seek his release, but rather a fair trial. “A convicted person was received at the airport,” the PTI leader said, apparently referring to ex-premier Nawaz Sharif landing in Islamabad after he returned to Pakistan in October 2023.
During his address, Afridi also praised Advocate Imaan Zainab Mazari-Hazir.
“Imaan Mazari has created a new history of resistance. The youth recieve encouragement from her,“ Afridi said. Without taking any names, he added that journalists were tried in courts and handed sentences in their absence.
“Arshad Sharif had to leave his country because of speaking the truth, but he was not spared even abroad,” the KP CM said, referring to the journalist being shot dead in Kenya on Oct 23, 2022.
Afridi cautioned the lawyers that while the PTI was facing “oppression and fascism today”, it could be their turn tomorrow. “You will not be able to tolerate what the PTI has,“ he said.
Afridi once again lamented that he was repeatedly being denied a meeting with Imran, who is incarcerated at Rawalpindi’s Adiala jail.
“Three judges [of the IHC] issued orders for [my] meeting with the PTI founder, but the Adiala jail’s superintendent throws that directive in the trash,” the KP CM said.
He said that Imran was “fighting our war in jail”, adding that “those who took cars from the Toshakhana were the rulers and the person who took items legally was in prison“.
CM Afridi further said that “people from all schools of thought” in KP believed that a military operation was not the solution to rising militancy in the province.
“But there are still preparations for an operation. This is not a functioning system but hooliganism,” the chief minister said.
