WASHINGTON: More than 60 members of the US House of Representatives wrote to President Joe Biden on Wednesday, calling for the release of political prisoners in Pakistan, including former PM Imran Khan.

The group, led by Congressman Greg Casar, called on the president “to centre human rights in US policy towards Pakistan”.

“We echo the calls for Khan’s immediate release and for an end to widespread arbitrary detention of party members and activists in Pakistan,” the members wrote. “We ask your administration to urgently secure the guarantees from the Pakistani government for Khan’s safety and well-being and urge US embassy officials to visit him in prison.”

Co-led by Jim McGovern and Summer Lee, the letter is signed by Democrats such as Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Barbara Lee, Brad Sherman, Debbie Wass­erman Schultz and Ro Khanna, among others.

“We join our Pakistani American constituents, as well as community leaders and elected officials thro­ughout our country and around the world, in standing in solidarity with the people of Pakistan and their struggle to rebuild a genuinely representative democracy,” the letter said.

Mr Casar is the same lawmaker who — in February this year — led a group of around 30 US Congress members writing to President Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken regarding their concerns about the fairness of the Feb 8 elections.

Also on Wednesday, musician Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens) also expressed solidarity with Imran Khan. In a tweet, he claimed that Mr Khan had been “illegally held for over a year, and now they have put him in solitary confinement for 3 weeks, in darkness, without permission to even take a walk”.

Published in Dawn, October 24th, 2024