Pakistan Police Raid Former Prime Minister Imran Khan's Party Office and Arrest its Spokesman

Women police officers taking the arrested female workers of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) from the party's headquarters into police van after a security raid in Islamabad on July 22, 2024. (Photo by Aamir QURESHI / AFP)
Women police officers taking the arrested female workers of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) from the party's headquarters into police van after a security raid in Islamabad on July 22, 2024. (Photo by Aamir QURESHI / AFP)
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Pakistan Police Raid Former Prime Minister Imran Khan's Party Office and Arrest its Spokesman

Women police officers taking the arrested female workers of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) from the party's headquarters into police van after a security raid in Islamabad on July 22, 2024. (Photo by Aamir QURESHI / AFP)
Women police officers taking the arrested female workers of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) from the party's headquarters into police van after a security raid in Islamabad on July 22, 2024. (Photo by Aamir QURESHI / AFP)

Pakistan's police raided the imprisoned former Prime Minister Imran Khan's political party office in Islamabad on Monday and arrested its spokesman for carrying out anti-state propaganda, the Interior Ministry said.
In a statement, the ministry said officers also arrested Ahmad Janjua, a media coordinator for Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf or PTI party. Janjua was arrested over the weekend in a separate raid, The Associated Press said.
The arrests have drawn criticism from Gohar Ali Khan, the chairman of PTI, who said authorities also arrested some other workers of the party's media wing, in a series of police raids in recent weeks.
Pakistani authorities often accuse the PTI of running a campaign against the country's institutions, a reference to the military, a charge the party denies.
Khan has been embroiled in more than 150 cases since 2022 when he was ousted through a vote of no-confidence in the parliament.
He has been held at a prison in the garrison city of Rawalpindi since last year after his arrest.



UN Expert Urges Probe of Iran 'Atrocity Crimes' in 1980s

(FILES) Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Iran Javaid Rehman listens to a statement during a special session of the UN Human Rights Council on the situation in Iran, at the United Nations in Geneva on November 24, 2022. (Photo by VALENTIN FLAURAUD / AFP)
(FILES) Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Iran Javaid Rehman listens to a statement during a special session of the UN Human Rights Council on the situation in Iran, at the United Nations in Geneva on November 24, 2022. (Photo by VALENTIN FLAURAUD / AFP)
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UN Expert Urges Probe of Iran 'Atrocity Crimes' in 1980s

(FILES) Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Iran Javaid Rehman listens to a statement during a special session of the UN Human Rights Council on the situation in Iran, at the United Nations in Geneva on November 24, 2022. (Photo by VALENTIN FLAURAUD / AFP)
(FILES) Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Iran Javaid Rehman listens to a statement during a special session of the UN Human Rights Council on the situation in Iran, at the United Nations in Geneva on November 24, 2022. (Photo by VALENTIN FLAURAUD / AFP)

A UN expert called Monday for an international investigation into "atrocity crimes", including genocide, committed in Iran against religious minorities and amid a purge of dissidents in the 1980s.

Javaid Rehman, the UN's independent special rapporteur on the rights situation in Iran, said there should be "no impunity for such gross human rights violations, regardless of when they were committed,” Agence France Presse reported.

"The Iranian regime and its leaders should not be allowed to escape the consequences of their crimes against humanity and genocide," he added.

The expert, whose mandate ends on July 31, said in a statement that the "atrocity crimes" of summary, arbitrary and extra-judicial executions in 1981-1982 and in 1988 "amounted to crimes against humanity of murder and extermination, as well as genocide."