Pakistan: Members Of Parliament Blame The Army For Many Crises
Pakistan: Members of Parliament blame the army for many crises in the country, calling Prime Minister Imran Khan a military puppet.
Leading Pakistani dissidents, including former and current Pakistani Members of Parliament, blamed the powerful Pakistan Military for the country’s fragility, insecurity, and inability to get along with its neighbors.
Pashtun leader and former senator Afrasiab Khattak said at the Fifth Annual Convention on Terrorism and Human Rights (SAATH) against South Asians, “Pakistan is under undisclosed martial law.”
SAATH is a group of pro-democracy Pakistanis founded by former Pakistan Ambassador Hussain Haqqani and US-based columnist Dr. Mohammed Taqi has done.
According to a statement, SAATH’s previous annual conferences have been held in London and Washington, but participants met this year.
Participants called Prime Minister Khan a “military puppet”, it said.
Members of the group include politicians, journalists, bloggers, social media activists, and civil society members, many of whom have been forced to live in exile in various countries.
The statement said that Pakistan’s security services had in the past tried to disrupt SAATH meetings and banned its members residing in Pakistan from traveling abroad, but this year, the virtual format has led to several prominent dissidents in the country Enabled to participate, the statement stated.
Khattak while addressing the conference from Pakistan said, “It is the most dangerous martial law in Pakistan because it has obscene and perverted constitutional institutions.”
He said, “The current military regime is representing political institutions, going to the extent that intelligence agencies direct members of Parliament to attend sessions and not to vote.” ”
Haqqani said that Prime Minister Khan had recently publicly blamed him and SAATH for undermining Pakistan’s international status.
He said, “Pakistan’s international status is losing out due to its policies to encourage extremism and suppress freedom, not because of the activism of those fighting for human rights.”
Several speakers, including Rubina Greenwood of the World Sindhi Congress, Tahira Jabeen of Gilgit-Baltistan, Shahzad Irfan of the Seraiki Movement.
Rasul Mohammed of the Pashtun Council of America, emphasized that various minorities in Pakistan were being tortured and deprived of their rights being done.
Irfan said that military intervention in politics strengthened the dominance of Punjab and was the major factor in the oppression of national and religious minorities.
Greenwood said that the only way for Pakistan to win over Sindhi and Baloch people would be for Pakistan to be a multi-national state. She stated that “Sindh is a historical entity that cannot be divided, or denied its identity”.
