A Pakistani anti-terrorism court has sentenced 108 members and allies of jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s political party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), to 10 years in prison each, in what critics are calling a sweeping and politically charged crackdown on dissent.
The convictions, handed down Thursday in the eastern city of Faisalabad, included senior political leaders Omar Ayub Khan, the opposition leader in Pakistan’s National Assembly, and Shibli Faraz, who heads PTI in the Senate. The sentences mark one of the harshest actions yet taken against the party since it won the most seats in Pakistan’s February 2024 general elections but was blocked from forming a government by the military establishment.
The verdicts relate to large-scale protests that erupted in May 2023 following Imran Khan’s arrest, during which demonstrators stormed military installations in a rare public challenge to the army’s authority in the nuclear-armed nation of 240 million. The military has long been seen as Pakistan’s most powerful institution, exercising decisive influence over both civilian governments and judicial processes.
PTI swiftly condemned the sentences, calling them politically motivated and unprecedented. “For the first time in Pakistan’s judicial history, such a sad and shameful incident occurred that the leaders of the opposition in both houses were punished solely on the basis that they were loyal allies of Imran Khan’s political narrative, public representation, and constitutional struggle,” the party said in a statement on social media platform X.
Imran Khan, a former cricket star turned populist leader, remains imprisoned in the garrison city of Rawalpindi and faces over 150 charges, including terrorism and corruption. He and his supporters maintain that the charges are fabricated and part of a broader campaign by the military to eliminate him from politics.
Since taking command in 2022, army chief General Asim Munir has consolidated control over the country’s political machinery. Human rights groups and opposition figures accuse his regime of election manipulation, judicial interference, and an authoritarian clampdown on dissent. Despite the military’s repeated denials of involvement in politics, critics say Munir’s leadership has pushed Pakistan further from democratic norms.
Thursday’s mass sentencing comes just weeks after reports of growing ties between Islamabad and Washington. In June, General Munir had a two-hour lunch with former U.S. President Donald Trump, who later described Munir as “very impressive.” This week, Trump claimed the two countries had agreed on a deal to develop Pakistan’s “massive oil reserves,” while Pakistani officials said they had secured a reduction in U.S. tariffs, previously set as high as 29 percent.
In light of the new convictions, PTI Chair Gohar Ali Khan said the party would consider boycotting the National Assembly or staging new demonstrations. Although PTI has largely avoided mass protests since a government crackdown crushed a planned march on Islamabad last November, the party continues to enjoy widespread grassroots support.
Gohar confirmed that the party plans to appeal the verdicts, but legal experts expect challenges in a judiciary increasingly seen as aligned with military interests. As Pakistan’s political climate grows more volatile, concerns are mounting both domestically and abroad about the erosion of democratic institutions and the expanding influence of the military over civil affairs.
