Pakistan: According to the PTI, demonstrators used water cannons to disperse outside Adiala prison
Pakistan: Following a sit-in outside Adiala prison in Rawalpindi, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) officials and the sisters of party founder and former prime minister Imran Khan were once again dispersed with water cannons.
After Imran’s sisters were once again refused access to the former prime minister, who is now being held in the Adiala prison, the demonstration was held late on Tuesday night.
Early on Wednesday, the PTI Punjab branch posted videos of protesters being blasted with water cannons on the social media site X.It said that unarmed, peaceful women, children, and people were attacked with water cannons in the bitter cold.
The same footage was posted on social media by the Tehreek-i-Tahafuz Ayeen-i-Pakistan (TTAP), Pakistan’s opposition coalition, which accused the Punjab police of attacking “innocent and unarmed people” with water cannons.The careless use of water cannons by the Punjab Police on defenseless and unarmed individuals outside Adiala Jail. The chemical-mixed water harmed hundreds of workers, top leaders of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, Imran Khan’s sisters, and senior leaders of Tehreek-e-Tahaffuz Ayeen-i-Pakistan who were in the line of fire from the water cannons. The party wrote on X, “We won’t be scared or intimidated by the government’s dirty tricks.”
The TTAP said in a different post on X that Imran’s sisters, Aleema, Noreen, and Uzma, were taken into custody by police along with TTAP spokesperson Akhunzada Hussain Yousafzai, PTI MNA Shahid Khattak, PTI attorney Khalid Yousuf, and a number of other people.
Aleema was seen lifting her fist in the air while being transported in a police vehicle in a video that was included with the post.
Aleema was brought to Chakri, where she was subsequently freed, according to a later statement made by the PTI early on Wednesday morning. The statement did not specify the other two sisters.
In a March 24 ruling, the Islamabad High Court mandated that meetings with Imran be permitted twice a week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
However, according to Pakistani newspaper Dawn, the PTI claimed that the country’s authorities had not complied with the verdict.
Since then, according to reports, the party has held sit-ins close to the jail to demand meetings with its founder; at the last two, water cannons were also used to disperse the crowd.
Amnesty International, a human rights organization, criticized Pakistani officials earlier this month for repeatedly using high-pressure water cannons on “peaceful protesters” outside Adiala Jail.The safety of nonviolent demonstrators and the police’ disregard for the court order are seriously called into question by these acts. Khan’s protracted 23-hour-a-day solitary confinement in subpar circumstances was recently denounced by the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture as illegal and equivalent to psychological torture under international norms.