Imran Khan’s sons file urgent appeal to UN over alleged torture in detention

The international legal team of former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has lodged an urgent appeal with the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment, Alice Edwards, seeking an immediate investigation into the treatment of the jailed opposition leader.

Filed on behalf of Khan’s sons, Sulaiman and Kasim Khan, the petition calls on the Special Rapporteur to press the Pakistani government to end what they describe as “torture and ill-treatment” of their father.

The same legal team previously won a ruling from the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (UNWGAD) which declared Khan’s imprisonment arbitrary, politically motivated, and in violation of international law, and called for his immediate release.

According to the filing, Khan has endured a pattern of severe abuses at Adiala Jail, including prolonged solitary confinement, denial of medical care, contaminated food, and persistent restrictions on access to lawyers and family members.

These practices, the lawyers argue, breach Pakistan’s obligations under the Convention Against Torture (CAT) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).

“Our father is being kept in conditions that no human being should endure — prolonged confinement, denial of adequate medical care, extreme heat and cold,” Sulaiman Khan said in a statement.

“By filing this urgent appeal with the United Nations, we are making clear that the world must not look away but should instead stand with our father and call for his release.”

Imran Khan, widely regarded as Pakistan’s most popular political figure, has been jailed since 2023 after his removal through a no-confidence vote widely seen as backed by the military.

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He faces a cumulative 14-year prison term on what his supporters call fabricated charges.

Despite the UNWGAD’s March 2024 finding that his detention was arbitrary and intended to bar him from political life, Khan remains behind bars under conditions described as “inhuman.”

His legal team says he is confined in a tiny isolation cell with no natural light, an open toilet under 24-hour CCTV surveillance, severe sleep deprivation, extreme heat from power cuts, inadequate food and water, and up to 22 hours a day of solitary confinement with no exercise or meaningful human contact.

Amnesty International and other human-rights groups have repeatedly warned of serious health risks given Khan’s age and the conditions of his imprisonment.