Islamabad: The Pakistan government will ban jailed former prime minister Imran Khan's party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) for alleged anti-state activities. "The government has decided that the federal government will move a case to ban the PTI," Pakistan's information minister Attaullah Tarar was quoted by AFP as saying.
"We believe that there is credible evidence that PTI should be banned," the minister added. The move to ban Imran's party appeared to be the government's attempt to prevent PTI from becoming the single largest party in the national assembly as the announcement was made on the heels of relief given to the party by the Supreme Court in the reserved seats case as well as to the party chief in the Iddat case.
Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir told The Print that many parties were banned in Pakistan but all banned parties are active today with different names. “This experiment failed in Pakistan again and again. It will only increase the popularity of Imran Khan,” he said.
Last week, PTI got a major boost as a Supreme Court ruling declared them eligible for reserved seats, depriving the ruling coalition of a two-thirds majority in the National Assembly. The move drew a strong reaction from PTI, which in return has also demanded invoking Article 6 of the Constitution against those who undertook the unconstitutional steps even though there is a Constitution in the country.
US expresses "great concern"Washington: The US has voiced concerns over the Pakistan government's move to ban jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan's party and emphasized that Washington would continue to "monitor these decisions and further decisions by the courts". "Our understanding is that this is the beginning of what will be a complex political process... Certainly banning a political concern is something -- or a political party is something that would be of great concern to us," US State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller said during a media interaction. |
