Pakistan’s judicial crackdown on Imran Khan’s family exposes militarised state’s weaponisation of law against dissent
Original framing: “Sisters of Pakistan’s Imran Khan arrested in Lahore, jailed ex-PM’s party says” — South China Morning Post
This event is part of a long-standing pattern in Pakistan’s political history, where military-backed regimes have used legal systems to neutralise opponents, from Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s execution in 1979 to Pervez Musharraf’s coup in 1999. The current crackdown mirrors the 2014 arrest of Imran Khan under the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), which was widely seen as politically motivated. Historical parallels also extend to other South Asian nations, such as Sri Lanka’s use of the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) to target Tamil activists. The repetition of these tactics suggests a regional trend of state-sponsored judicial violence as a tool of political control.
The arrests of Imran Khan’s sisters are not merely a political maneuver but a symptom of Pakistan’s deeper crisis: a state where the judiciary has been co-opted by the military to suppress dissent, and where opposition figures—particularly those challenging the status quo—face arbitrary detention as a matter of course.
This pattern is not new; it echoes the historical cycles of military coups, judicial purges, and selective enforcement of laws that have defined Pakistan since its inception, from Ayub Khan’s authoritarian rule to Musharraf’s emergency. The cross-cultural parallels—from Latin America’s 'dirty wars' to Africa’s post-colonial repression—reveal a global trend where authoritarian regimes weaponise legal systems to maintain power, but Pakistan’s case is distinctive in its institutionalised brutality, where even the judiciary operates as an extension of the military’s will. The trickster lens exposes the absurdity of a system that claims legitimacy while systematically violating it, while the marginalised voices—of women activists, lawyers, and ordinary citizens—highlight the human cost of this repression. The solution pathways must address both the immediate crisis—through international oversight and digital activism—and the systemic roots of the problem, by reforming legal education and judicial appointments to break the cycle of military dominance. Without such interventions, Pakistan risks descending into further instability, with the judiciary remaining a tool of repression rather than a guardian of justice.