News Release

Protests Rock Pakistan Following Imran Khan Charging U.S. Behind His Ouster 

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The journalist Sharmine Narwani tweeted: “Western Twitter oblivious to the millions pouring onto #Pakistan’s streets today to express solidarity with @ImranKhanPTI [Imran Khan] and outrage against the US-backed coup to oust him. Follow the hashtag #RevolutionBlackedOut for more.”

Khan himself tweeted: “Thank you to all Pakistanis for their amazing outpouring of support & emotions to protest against US-backed regime change abetted by local Mir Jafars [traitors] to bring into power a coterie of pliable crooks all out on bail. Shows Pakistanis at home & abroad have emphatically rejected this.”

JUNAID AHMAD, junaidsahmad@gmail.com
Ahmad is professor of religion and world politics at the University of Lahore in Pakistan and Director of the Center for the Study of Islam and Decoloniality.

   He said today: “We have seen the largest demonstrations in the country’s history — taking place in ALL cities and towns.”

Ahmad recently wrote: “While the world’s attention is understandably focused on the crisis in Ukraine, equally grave developments are taking place elsewhere. Perhaps the most consequential — and underreported — is a regime-change operation underway in Pakistan. …

    “Khan, who was democratically elected in 2018, has warned that an ‘effort is being made to topple the government with the help of foreign funds in our country.’

“’Our people are being used. Mostly unknowingly, but some knowingly are using this money against us,’ Khan said at a rally on March 27. He added that the government had proof of these payments.”

    Khan says the U.S. sent him a threatening letter and he has proof of foreign funding for a regime-change operation, aimed at reversing his independent foreign policy — like his alliance with China and Russia and support for Palestine.

    Al Jazeera reports in “Pakistan’s Shehbaz Sharif submits nomination to become new PM” that: “Younger brother of three-times Pakistan prime minister Nawaz Sharif, Shehbaz Sharif, 70, led the opposition efforts that toppled Imran Khan.” Nawaz Sharif was last ousted as prime minister in 2017 following revelations of corruption in the Panama Papers.
    The U.S. government has denied it is behind Imran Khan’s ouster. See piece in Wall Street Journal: “Conspiracy Play — Pakistan’s prime minister says the U.S. is trying to topple his government in a ploy to hold on to power.”

    See Ahmad’s past interviews and writings at The Real News. One of his past pieces, “Liberal Fundamentalists and Imranophobia,” states: “Liberal fundamentalists detest Imran because he does not fit the bill regarding these core values and dispositions. He is the beardless internal ‘other’ who is not quite as easily dismissible as the body of the bearded religious brown man. Liberal fundamentalists want Imran to be like them but he is not, hence the visceral reactions of contempt.”

“Thus, one cannot help but laud Imran for taking initiatives such as facilitating exchange visits between students from public and private universities and madrasa students. Such experiments in listening sympathetically to the internal ‘other’ are critical to curating a less polarized and ultimately a less violent society.”