Imran Khan: behind bars in Pakistan, facing the silence of Muslim leaders
From sporting icon to Prime Minister, to end up thrown in the dungeon, his martyrdom in the jails of Pakistan does much more than unmask an authoritarian power. It sheds harsh light on the hypocrisy and complicit silence of many leaders, particularly Muslims, throughout the world.
From cricket legend to spiritual awakening
Before presiding over the destiny of Pakistan or languishing in cells, Imran Khan was a global icon. For two decades he dominated international sport at the highest level, a career requiring absolute focus and relentless “tunnel vision”.
The 1992 triumph in Melbourne against England is enshrined in national legend. He is considered the greatest player in the history of Pakistani cricket and one of the best all-rounders in the world, and is part of the very exclusive club of only three players in the history of cricket to have crossed the double milestone of 3,000 runs. This unique sporting glory served as a springboard to his immense popularity, subsequently allowing him to build major philanthropic projects (such as the country’s first free cancer hospital) before entering politics and becoming Prime Minister of Pakistan from 2018 to 2022.
However, as he confided in 2021 during an interview with American Islamic scholar Sheikh Hamza Yusuf which can be found on YouTube, it was the inevitable failures and setbacks inherent to sport that kept him grounded, forcing him into deep “introspection”. Thus, at the twilight of his athletic career, faith impacted his life, radically changing his view of the world. He acquired the intimate conviction that success, respect and wealth are only a matter of divine will, and not of simple human greatness. This awareness is, according to him, the only real antidote to overcome the human ego, which he considers “the most destructive thing in a human being”.
Far from being relegated to the private sphere, Khan’s faith shone through in his public discourse. He never stopped praising the Ghairat – this deep feeling of self-respect and dignity – which he directly opposed to the modern quest for wealth. To illustrate his thinking, he often told the story of this modest worker, working in crushing heat, who had categorically refused additional payment, insisting that he had already been paid for his task. Khan contrasted this nobility of soul, which he observed in ordinary citizens, with the morals of wealthy elites, who had become simple “servants of wealth”.
On a crusade against oligarchy and monopolization
It was this same faith that propelled him into the political arena. Although he already possessed fame, fortune, and respect, Khan felt an overwhelming responsibility to use his privilege to uplift his society. Drawing inspiration from the thirteen years of struggle of the Prophet Muhammad before the advent of the State of Medina, he asserted that the certainty that God controls the final outcome had definitively freed him from the fear of failure.
His political project consisted of two pillars: establishing an implacable rule of law and eradicating poverty. He quickly targeted “elite capture” and the absence of universal justice as the scourges crippling Pakistan’s potential. “The problem was the monopolization of resources by an elite, depriving the majority of health care, education and justice,” he explained to Sheikh Hamza Yusuf.
Khan insisted that no society can flourish without meritocracy, an ideal made impossible when a “decadent elite” confiscates wealth and the judiciary. He denounced a postcolonial system where prisons are overflowing with indigents, while “rich crooks” parade above the law. His ultimate ambition? Building an Islamic welfare state modeled on the justice of Medina.
The descent into hell and the repressive machine
The price of this insubordination was exorbitant. Since his dismissal in April 2022, Imran Khan has suffered the relentless wrath of the Pakistani military establishment. Arrested on May 9, 2023, then on August 5, 2023, he has been detained for more than three years. But this military repression is taking place against a very specific political backdrop: the revenge of the country’s two great historical dynasties, the Bhutto and Sharif clans. These two families, who shared the reins of Pakistan for decades, embody to the point of caricature this “elite capture” that Khan had sworn to dismantle. Formerly sworn enemies, they ended up keeping quiet about their old resentments to seal a convenient alliance, actively endorsed by the army, in order to oust this outsider which threatened their hegemony. For these two clans, neutralizing Imran Khan was not a simple game of democratic alternation; it was a question of dynastic survival aimed at protecting a political system of which they are the ultimate renters.
The charges are widely denounced as political fabrications. While Khan was acquitted in January 2025 in state secrets and marriage cases, he is currently serving a 14-year sentence for corruption charges. Worse still, in December 2025, he and his wife were sentenced to an additional 17 years in prison in the infamous state gifts affair.
Imran Khan has been described as a “prisoner of conscience in the war on terror” the legal frameworks constructed during the “War against terror” have turned against political dissidents. Khan was in fact one of the most powerful voices in the Muslim world to oppose the excesses of this war, condemning the drone strikes which cost the lives of more than 80,000 Pakistanis, and resisting pressure to normalize relations with Israel via the Abraham Accords.
The indictment of the international community
Faced with this legal disaster, the international human rights community has not minced its words. Amnesty International accuses the Pakistani authorities of having “systematically denied Imran Khan the right to a fair trial, of having subjected him to prolonged isolation and of having limited his access to care”. Isabelle Lassee, acting regional director for South Asia, expressed alarm that Khan “has not been allowed to meet his family for more than eight months and his eyesight has reportedly deteriorated significantly.”
The UN verdict is equally damning. The Working Group on Arbitrary Detention described his imprisonment as “arbitrary and contrary to international standards,” pointing to multiple violations of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (articles 9, 14, 19, 22, 25 and 26). The report criticizes “the absence of a legal basis, political motivations and systematic violations of procedural guarantees”. Alice Jill Edwards, the UN Special Rapporteur on torture, went even further, warning that his “inhumane and undignified” detention conditions could amount to torture.
The Malaysian precedent: the shadow of Anwar Ibrahim
This political tragedy is reminiscent of that of Anwar Ibrahim in Malaysia. The man nicknamed the “Nelson Mandela of Malaysia” was twice imprisoned on trumped-up charges of corruption and sodomy (a legacy of British colonial law). Dismissed from office in 1998, sentenced to 15 years in prison, then imprisoned again in 2015, Anwar suffered the wrath of a repressive state.
Yet he persevered. After nearly a decade behind bars, he forged a historic coalition to overthrow a corrupt government in 2018, eventually becoming prime minister. His journey proves that the resilience of principled leadership can triumph over state oppression.
The guilty silence of the Muslim community
But the most disturbing aspect of the Imran Khan affair remains the abysmal silence of a large part of the Muslim world. If Western leaders and Islamic organizations rebel with admirable clarity against American crimes in Iraq, Islamophobia or the tragedies of Palestine, Kashmir and Hindutva, their vocabulary suddenly becomes very cautious when the oppressor is a state with a Muslim majority.
As academic Junaid S. Ahmad bitterly points out: “A Muslim political figure associated with causes that Western Muslim leaders themselves describe as fundamental has spent more than three years in prison while much of that institutional world has remained comparatively silent. » He recalls that an anti-terrorism law does not become acceptable simply because the state which applies it is Muslim. The Koranic injunction requiring one to defend justice, even against oneself or one’s loved ones, takes on its full meaning here.
“If Kashmiri political action deserves to be defended when Delhi represses it, the principle cannot disappear when Kashmiris confront Islamabad,” insists Junaid S. Ahmad. This unfortunately also applies to a large part of Arab countries.
A test of moral consistency
Imran Khan’s incarceration is no longer just a Pakistani crisis; it is a test of moral consistency. We must refuse to grant a free pass to Pakistan, recognizing that the liberticidal architecture of the war against terrorism has also been nourished by the complicity of governments and elites of Muslim countries.
Imran Khan, a man who found faith at the height of glory, who fought against oligarchy and defended the rule of law, is slowly dying in a cell. Its fate is a mirror held up to global consciousness. The question is no longer whether this man has integrity, his life and his sacrifices have already given their verdict. The real question is whether the world, and the Muslim world in particular, will ever find the courage to rise up to defend it.
