English musician and Pink Floyd member Roger Waters called on Tuesday for former prime minister Imran Khan’s release from “false imprisonment”.
“I am an English musician and a passionate supporter of fair play. What you are doing in Pakistan is not cricket,” he wrote, in a note addressed to “the military rulers of Pakistan and their masters in Washington”.
“Imran Khan must be immediately released from his false imprisonment so that he can lead his party the PTI in a new fair and transparent election so that Pakistan can have a properly elected democratic government that actually represents the will of the people of Pakistan. Not the interests of foreign and domestic oligarchs,” the Pink Floyd bassist continued.
His post was accompanied by a video montage of Imran and his supporters with ‘I Don’t Like Cricket (I Love It)’ by 10 cc playing in the background.
Pakistan headed to the polls last week following a turbulent political year. From the pre-poll phase to election day irregularities to the post-poll counting process — attempts to subvert the PTI that were blatantly executed have not gone unnoticed in both Pakistan or the international media; neither has the fact that PTI-backed candidates clinched majority National Assembly seats in spite of them.
Imran has been convicted and sentenced in three separate cases — 10 years for the cipher case, which pertains to a diplomatic document that the Federal Investigation Agency’s charge sheet alleged was never returned by Imran, 14 years each for him and his wife Bushra Bibi in the Toshakhana reference, and seven years each along with a Rs0.5 million fine for “contracting marriage during the ‘Iddat’ (period of waiting)” of the former first lady. The Iddat case conviction was Imran’s third conviction in a single week.