Imran Khan, former prime minister of Pakistan, has called for national “freedom” protests on Sunday after his temporary imprisonment last week led to fatal violence across the country.
The former cricketer and Prime Minister, who has been involved in dozens of legal proceedings since being removed from office in April 2022, was released on bail on Friday after the highest court declared that his imprisonment was illegal.
Angry with the arrest, Khan’s supporters destroyed military equipment, stopped roads, and set fire to government facilities, which they claimed was the cause of Khan’s imprisonment.
On Saturday night, the Former Pakistani PM said on his official youtube channel, “Freedom does not arrive without struggle; you have to make sacrifices for it”.
He urged his supporters to participate in protests “at the end of streets and villages” throughout the country on Sunday and declared he would resume his pitch for quick elections on Wednesday.
The leader of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party has been fighting the military with defiance for months. He received a warning for saying senior officials were participating in an assassination attempt on him in 2022 just hours before his arrest on Tuesday.
For nearly half of Pakistan’s 75-year existence, the country has been directly ruled by its powerful military, which also maintains control over the democratic system.
He previously claimed to reporters that his detention was the result of “one man, the army chief.”
Khan, however, distanced himself from the violence committed against the military’s facilities during the protests, denying that any of his party’s members were involved, and called for an impartial investigation into the incident.
Khan’s charges are untrue, and the army warned against spreading “misperceptions” about the organisation on Saturday.
Authorities report that during the turmoil last week, at least nine people died, hundreds of police officers were hurt, and more than 4,000 people were jailed.