Fears Grow for Health of Pakistan’s Jailed Former Prime Minister Imran Khan

Concern is mounting regarding the health of Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Imran Khan, who has spent over a year in a squalid prison cell on a slew of charges his supporters insist are politically motivated.

On Tuesday, Khan’s ex-wife, British socialite Jemima Khan, posted on X that the couple’s sons had been barred since Sept. 10 from speaking with their father, who his party alleges has also been denied access to lawyers or doctors. “He is now completely isolated, in solitary confinement, literally in the dark, with no contact with the outside world,” she wrote. “His lawyers are concerned about his safety and well-being.”

A court order had permitted Khan’s personal physician to visit him in jail on Tuesday but he was denied entry after waiting for several hours outside, Raoof Hasan, a spokesperson for Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, told TIME. Instead, two government-appointed doctors examined Khan, 72, and later released a report that declared him “fit and healthy.”

However, Hasan insisted that assessment is not trustworthy. “We have no faith in the doctors,” he said. “They're government servants and obviously they will do as the government directs. They had fudged Khan's medical report once in the past. There are indications that Khan is not really well.”

In response to criticism regarding the welfare of Khan, Defense Minister Khawaja Asif said: “Imran [has been] extended far more humanity than he ever exhibited for his opponents.”

Khan’s PTI party was banned in the lead up to February elections but independent candidates it backed still won a plurality of legislative seats, despite its leader being behind bars and myriad irregularities both before and on polling day. However, the second place Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party instead formed a government largely thanks to military backing.

In a rare demonstration of bipartisan resolve, the U.S. House of Representatives voted by an overwhelming 368-7 in June for an investigation into alleged poll-rigging in Pakistan, echoing separate calls by the U.K. and E.U. However, no executive action has been taken by the White House, which “speaks to the duplicity of the Western world,” says Hasan. “It’s very unfortunate that Pakistan has not had the attention we deserve in the context of both democracy and human rights.”

The increasing pressure on Khan and his family—two of his sisters were also detained on Oct. 4—comes as the PTI planned a series of flash protests in Islamabad to coincide with an ongoing Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit that would have proven extremely embarrassing for the government, said Samina Yasmeen, director of the Centre for Muslim States and Societies at the University of Western Australia.

“The government is already so weak and feeling under threat, so their main reaction is to put as much pressure as they can on the PTI and especially Khan,” she said.

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In June, the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention found that Khan was unlawfully and arbitrarily detained and called for his immediate release. In a separate post on X on Tuesday, Jemima Khan revealed that she’d received rape threats from Khan’s opponents. Meanwhile, the PTI has vowed to continue protesting unless Khan receives access to his family, lawyers, and doctors.

“There is a possibility that we will call for a national strike,” Hasan said. “The government has used the worst of its apparatus in the last two and a quarter years. They're at their fascist worst; they have brutalized people, they've arrested them, they've tortured them, mauled the families. There's really nothing to fear any longer.”