Former human rights minister and Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) core committee member Shireen Mazari has written to special rapporteurs of the UN, calling for their intervention to cease the Pakistani government’s “misuse of the blasphemy law” against Imran Khan and senior PTI leaders. The letter dated May 2, a copy of which is available with Dawn.com, has been addressed to the UN’s special rapporteur on extrajudicial summary or arbitrary executions, special rapporteur on the freedom of opinion and expression, and special rapporteur on the freedom of religion and belief. It stated that Pakistan had been engulfed in a political crisis ever since the Imran Khan-led government was ousted in the aftermath of a “regime change scheme” and replaced with a government led by Shehbaz Sharif, who has been named in “multiple money-laundering and corruption cases and is out on bail”. In March, Mazari recalled, Imran’s government had concluded in a cabinet meeting that there had been a “US-backed regime-change conspiracy” against the former prime minister assisted by the “establishment” and “opposition political parties”.
“This conclusion was premised upon the content of a cipher message received from Pakistan’s envoy in Washington DC detailing a formal meeting between Mr Donald Lu of the State Department with the envoy and 3 other members of the embassy along with note-takers on both sides.” The cipher message, the letter stated, reflected the anger of the US over Imran’s visit to Russia just as the Ukrainian military conflict was about to begin. It continued that if the no-trust motion against Imran succeeded, “all would be forgiven”. Mazari then mentioned that the events that followed included the submission of the no-confidence motion, the National Assembly (NA) deputy speaker’s rejection of the motion and the Supreme Court’s intervention in the matter which ultimately resulted in Imran’s ouster.
Source: dawn.com
Monday, May 4, 2026
