LAHORE: Mocking the PML-N for peddling “Vote Ko Izzat Do” narrative to strike a ‘deal’, the PTI incarcerated leaders say it will be sheer hypocrisy to block the party’s peaceful protest campaign.

In an open letter sent from jail, PTI vice-chairman Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Senator Ejaz Chaudhry, former governor Omar Sarfraz Cheema and former ministers Dr Yasmin Rashid and Mian Mahmood ur Rasheed said the party was continuing its “Haqeeqi Azadi” protest campaign for the supremacy of rule of law, poverty alleviation, accountability of looters and recovery of looted wealth.

“This protest campaign was peaceful and continues to be peaceful even after giving workers’ blood and facing the worst kind of fascism unleashed by the incumbent government.”

The incarcerated leaders wrote that it was the party’s constitutional, democratic and political right to protest against such elements.

“We invite all political parties, which are not part of the ruling coalition, to join PTI’s peaceful protest campaign against the elements that conspired for violent protest activities besides using state power against innocent protesting citizens,” they wrote.

Highlighting the ‘dark deeds’ of such elements, the jailed leaders stated those elements were involved in the 2022 regime change, horse-trading of MNAs in Sindh House, violating the Parliament’s decisions, avoiding constitutionally in-time elections after the dissolution of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa assemblies, violating the Supreme Court’s 2023 decisions, conspiracies to orchestrate violent incidents, stealing people’s mandate in 2024 and desecrating the Constitution through the 26th Amendment.

Published in Dawn, July 10th, 2025