The 2023 Pakistani protests, or the Imran Khan Arrest protests were a series of protests and riots across Pakistan that started in March 2023. The first of these protests erupted on Tuesday 14 March 2023 after the Pakistani
Punjab Police force
attempted to arrest Imran Khan—but called off their operation due to the
Pakistan Super League Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...
match.
Little over one month later, on Tuesday 9 May 2023
Khan was arrested—triggering violent protests and demonstrations. Social media websites were blocked in Pakistan when the protests began, with
Youtube,
Twitter and
Facebook blocked indefinitely as of mid-May.
Nearly 125 million people have been affected by the government’s decision to suspend mobile broadband and block access to social media apps.
Background
These protests are part of wider ongoing
political unrest in Pakistan that triggered with the ouster of former
Prime Minister Imran Khan from his office through a vote of
No-Confidence Motion
A motion of no confidence, also variously called a vote of no confidence, no-confidence motion, motion of confidence, or vote of confidence, is a statement or vote about whether a person in a position of responsibility like in government or mana ...
(NCM). As a result of successful NCM,
Imran Khan became first Pakistani PM ever to be removed by the NCM. After ouster from office Khan alleged that he was ousted by the
PDM-an alliance of 13 political parties, with the patronage of connivance between
United States and Pakistan's
military establishment. Leading up to these protests was the 2022
Toshakhana reference case, a Pakistani government inquiry registered against Imran Khan by the
Election Commission of Pakistan.
Khan was believed to have been evading mandatory hearings appearances. As a result, the District and Sessions court of capital Islamabad issued an arrest warrant for Khan and ordered the police to arrest him so as to present him for the next hearing.
Khan, however, maintains the arrest is truly aimed at removing him from the upcoming national election.
Series of incidents
Protests first broke out in Islamabad on Tuesday 14 March when police first decided to delay Khan's arrest. Police and party workers clashed outside of his Zaman Park residence in
Lahore, and also used gas and a
water cannon on supporters nearby. Police also arrested party workers.
The following day, Khan's lawyers approached the
Islamabad High Court (IHC) and requested it to suspend Khan's non-bailable arrest warrants in the
Toshakhana case. In a contrary decision, the high court directed the deposed prime minister's counsel to move the trial court instead, as the order for his arrest was "in line with the law".
At around the same time, the Pakistani political party
PTI PTI may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* ''Pardon the Interruption'', an American television sports show
* PTI, a musical group on the WTII Records label
Organizations
* Pacific Torah Institute, a yeshiva high school in Vancouver, British Columb ...
also filed a petition in the
Lahore High Court (LHC) to suspend the warrant orders. However, on 15 March 2023, the LHC ordered the police to halt their operations in Lahore's Zaman Park until March 16, despite their failure to apprehend Khan. They reasoned that an arrest would interfere with the nearby
Pakistan Super League playoff match.
On 16 March, Khan—as the chairman of the PTI—requested again the suspension of the non-bailable arrest warrants issued in the
Toshakhana case, but this request was denied again by the Islamabad District Court on March 16, 2023. Additional District and Sessions judge Zafar Iqbal announced the verdict and ordered the authorities concerned to arrest the former prime minister and present him before the court on March 18. The Lahore High Court then duplicated its order the police postpone their attempt to detain Khan until March 17.
Second Phase (9-11 May)
The second phase of the protests was brief but marked violence and death of dozens of civilians. It was not until 7 May during a rally that Khan accused a senior ISI intelligence officer, Faisal Naseer, of orchestrating plans to murder him. The next day, ISPR said “irresponsible and baseless allegations" by Khan against a serving senior military officer without evidence were “extremely unfortunate, deplorable and unacceptable”.
Two days later, on 9 May,
Khan was arrested in Al Qadir University Case and mass protests were held nationwide in
Pakistan.
After the arrest of Khan protestors alleged that Khan was arrested on the orders of Pakistan Army for his anti-military stance. Protesters started to attack various military installations across the country. The
General Headquaters(GHQ) of
Pakistan Army
The Pakistan Army (, ) is the Army, land service branch of the Pakistan Armed Forces. The roots of its modern existence trace back to the British Indian Army that ceased to exist following the partition of India, Partition of British India, wh ...
and the official residence of
Corps Commander Lahore were attacked by the violent mob. In
Islamabad blocked one of the main highways in and out of the capital, people also lit fires and threw stones during this early event. One person died in the locality of
Quetta.
Protesters in
Peshawar also set fire to the Radio Pakistan premises in protest. The protesters also forcefully stopped an ambulance which was on it's way to a hospital, they took the driver and the patient out of the vehicle and started pelting stones at it first and then set fire to it. There were many clashes during these protests also. At around this time, the social media shutdown was authorised, impacting
YouTube,
Twitter and
Facebook.
Former ministers who served in the
cabinet of ex-PM Imran Khan, namely
Shah Mahmood Qureshi,
Asad Umar
Asad Umar ( ur, ; born 18 September 1961) is a Pakistani politician who has been a member of the National Assembly of Pakistan since September 2013. He served as the Federal Minister for Planning, Development, Reforms and Special Initi ...
, and
Fawad Chaudhry, are among those that have been arrested during the nationwide protests. The Chief Minister of
Gilgit-Baltistan
Gilgit-Baltistan (; ), formerly known as the Northern Areas, is a region administered by Pakistan as an administrative territory, and constituting the northern portion of the larger Kashmir region which has been the subject of a dispute bet ...
,
Khalid Khurshid, was placed under house arrest in Islamabad.
Authorities imposed
Section 144 in all provinces of Pakistan, and the Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah requested the deployment of soldiers from the Pakistan Army in Punjab and
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as the police force was deemed incapable of handling the situation. As a result, 10 companies of the Army were dispatched to Punjab after the announcement was made.
However, according to reports, the
Supreme Court of Pakistan has since deemed the arrest of Imran Khan as unlawful, ordering the Pakistani authorities to release him.
The army was deployed across the country as the death toll was rising in clashes between protestors and the army.
On 12 May, Khan was released on
bail and made his way to his personal residence on Lahore. Once out of prison he stated that “I am 100% sure I will be arrested again." and also noted that arrest warrants will be issued for his wife,
Bushra Bibi, and that she too will likely be arrested. In an attempt to quell the situation, the Pakistani government
shut down the rest of the internet, which failed to stifle the discontent and further fueled the protests across the country.
Pakistani police surrounded Khan's house in Lahore on 17 May. Authorities issued a 24-hour deadline to Khan to surrender suspects, linked to the previous weeks violence, allegedly sheltered inside his home but the deadline expired without his arrest. He said he asked journalists to come to his home, which led to a de-escalation with police. "So that defused the situation because clearly there were no terrorists. So that's when the police could not take action," the former prime minister added.
Conflicting views regarding the motive of the protests
As indicated by renowned journalist Dr. Moeed Pirzada, that all that happened on May 9th 2023 and onwards, the protests and burning of few government/military buildings, was all planned by military establishment and a large group of public seems to be inline with this thought. This was also being stated by Imran Khan as well. According to Dr. Moeed Pirzada and many other journalists, it was a strategy to label PTI as an extremist party, start a crackdown over its political leaders & workers by detaining over 10 thousand workes where the female prisoners were being humiliated & raped and eventually pave the way to ban the political party.
On the other hand, an audio leak of one of Khan's trusted lieutenants, Murad Saeed, emerged in which he was heard urging the followers of Imran Khan to target places already shown to them before, which corresponded to the government stance that the protests of 9th May 2023 were actually an attempt to stage a coup against the sitting Army chief in collusion with army officers sympathetic to Imran Khan, including the then Corps Commander of Lahore.
References
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2022–2023 Pakistan political unrest
2023 protests
2023 in Pakistani politics
2020s in Islamabad
Events in Islamabad
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March 2023 events in Pakistan
April 2023 events in Pakistan
May 2023 events in Pakistan
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf
Imran Khan