Imran khan
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Does anyone believe Pakistan's election results?
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| Imran khan news Does anyone believe Pakistan's election results? |
where this week's vote did not go according to plan it was meant to be a formality the outcome predetermined by the Pakistani military and intelligence apparatus referred to Across the media there as the establishment had made its preferences clear and marginalized candidates it opposed namely former prime minister Imran Khan the media had their marching orders anchors shied away from mentioning Khan's name on the air but the establishment encountered a problem KH and his party the PTI remained
popular
with the people and the early returns reflected that for all their managing of
the narrative and meddling with the politics the powers lurking behind the
scenes in Pakistan underestimated the PTI's popularity with the electorate and
what has followed is [Music] Chaos 3 days before Pakistanis went to the polls
came this prediction one that would prove prophetic on what would happen if
voters failed to back Noah Sharif the candidate of the powers that be and voted
for Imran Khan instead slow down it is
mandible
that is exactly what happened once the first wave of returns showing candidates
affiliated with CON were leading the next wave of results slowed to a trickle
the election commission's official website suddenly went down on Election night
of Pakistanis tuned into their news channels were watching their democracy
being managed in real time this election was hardly an election I think the
right word for this was is a predetermined selection the military establishment
had expected that they would be able to
control
the results within 2 to three hours it became obvious that Imran Khan's party
was sweeping the elections so the military took control of the election commission
and manufactured totally new election results Pakistanis have always had
to read between the lines in the reporting and decipher coded language from
news outlets wary of angering the authorities they use cryptic terms like the
establishment for the institutions that have almost always held the real power
behind the scenes the Army and the
intelligence
agency the isi such language was deployed throughout the election campaign
delivered with a chuckle at times like a joke that everyone is in [Music on the establishment tried hard to tilt the playing field against the
former prime minister Imran Khan the country's most popular national leader and
his party the PTI was officially banned and from the ballot party
candidates were forced to run as Independents then just a week before the
vote KH was sentenced to more than 30 years in jail on corruption charges
and
dubious allegations that he had an uni slim marriage The Establishment thought
it had managed to make KH and his party unelectable the results of the vote at
least the early returns proved otherwise in many ways Imran Khan's story is the story of both continuity and a story of disruption Imran Khan's story of
continuity what is that's because every prime minister in Pakistan who
Tred to assert civilian Authority eventually comes up against the military
establishment uh and he has you know um
shown
the door outed out of power in whichever way um is deemed fit uh but Imran Khan's
story is also a story of disruption uh because he's been able to tap into a
sentiment within Pakistan uh and that personality cult has meant that he's
retained uh his hold on the public imagination and is uh now actually given as
an example or a lesson of how to sort of tap into uh the demographic the youth
uh and young people as well who are obviously key voters but I think also it's
a one way of describing his
political
party because it is around the personality of Imran Khan the myth and the
legend is that uh it's not Pakistan Theaf it's actually Pakistan Thean when
Imran Khan was first elected in 2018 he didn't really take power he shared it
with the establishment as other prime ministers have had to do in what
Pakistanis call their hybrid regimes the former Cricket player played ball with
the military until 2021 when he clashed with army Chiefs over who should lead
the intelligence agency by 2022 he was out of office then KH went
after
the establishment of shattering tab Boos by naming and shaming Army heads setting
himself on a collision course with the security apparatus effectively sealing
his own political fate I think this is also a very simplistic way of looking at
it Mr. Imran Khan he may have um peddled the kind of narrative which has made
him a very popular leader in Pakistan but he's committed a long list of
mistakes both while he was in power from 2018 uh till he was thrown out
in 2022 in a vote of no confidence and even
afterwards
so, for example, he pedaled this theory about some very large-scale conspiracy in
which the United States was involved with the opposition parties in Pakistan to
throw him out because he had a large support base he was able to whip up a lot
of frenzies but then obviously the next thing happened which is that he was
slapped with a lot of court cases I heard reports people who attended a meeting
with intelligence and the message was very clearly delivered that you cannot
say Imran Khan's name on mainstream television so um the
Pakistani
media had many amusing ways of referring to Imran Khan it was always some kind
of metaphor uh describing him as um San's father that's his son's name
anchors were used to say Imran Khan very easily or Khan and then you
suddenly see that they have to stop themselves but very of the compromises
their mainstream media operate under supporters of con and the PTI flocked to YouTube
social media and elsewhere online to get their news con's own YouTube account
has been key to his party's messaging as have bloggers
backing
the PTI spreading the word virally those platforms have also attracted the
attention of the establishment YouTube Imran RI Khan no relation is a
cautionary case in point one of them a broadcast journalist Imran riia worked
for mainstream news channels until 2020 before migrating to YouTube where he
has more than 4 million subscribers in 2023 after Imran Khan's supporters
attacked military installations Imran RI was arrested for a third time and
disappeared for 4 months police and other officials denied knowing of his
whereabouts
he came out of it clearly damaged his case and served as a warning to Pakistani
journalists working online Imran Ryas Khan was twice abducted and picked up
illegally uh he spent months in solitary confinement uh he came back in very
bad shape were others were abused beaten and assaulted on the roads side a
very prominent television anchor person a colleague of mine AR was uh chased in
Dubai he was forced to leave Dubai he took shelter in Kenya where he was gunned
down all the elements of his murder found within
Pakistan
and then the threats the midnight calls I was called many times in the middle of
the night this is how I was forced to leave Pakistan after Shahid AR Sharif's
murder media under threat is a reality that is connected to the um the kind of
power structure that we have here in Pakistan does the threat come from The
Establishment there are no two ways about it does it come from civilian
governments of course it does there have been a long line of people in Pakistan
who've held very high officers both civil and Military who've
had
very little tolerance for freedom of expression and have resorted to
all kinds of pressures both violent and nonviolent to try and calm down on the
media so unfortunately the reality is that Pakistani media continues to live
under threat Pakistan this is the stage of the story where we sometimes turn
to the lessons to be learned or how things are likely to change except almost
no one in Pakistan sees it that way despite the glaring slowing down of the
vote count the clear interference of the elections
Commission
in the Electoral outcome it comes as no surprise to Pakistanis that there was
Noaj Sharif the day after an election he appeared to have lost making what his
party called a victory speech Pakistan Muslim League leaving Pakistanis to face
the fact the incontestable well-established fact that theirs is a democracy in
name only there's a phrase that Pakistanis use a lot which is everybody knows who's behind it despite all that's happened to Imran Khan and
the Pakistan today is that they've
demonstrated
that they know what's happening and demonstrated through the power of the vote
and that the disconnect between the people and the military establishments is
something that the military establishment should deeply think about maybe
doesn't even matter because no consequences are turning to Gaza now it's
been two weeks since the international court of justice concluded that Israel
may be committing a genocide there yet that seems to have had little effect on
Israeli soldiers who continue to commit
crimes
against Palestinians and post the evidence online TK NAFA is here with more
Richard evidence of War war crimes is being uploaded online by Israeli soldiers
almost every day this image of a Palestinian man stripped bleeding and tied
down prompted outrage this week The Man Behind the photo goes by the name Yosi
games Lova he's a photographer in the Israeli military who uploaded the picture
to Facebook and he clearly wasn't ashamed of it that's his mobile number at the
bottom of the image after
it
went viral Lova locked his Facebook account but we managed to catch a glimpse
of his profile before he did it included pictures of his unit occupying
Palestinian homes they've destroyed while taking trophy photos Lova is
also responsible for this video from December which showed captive Palestinian
men and boys being paraded half naked at a football pitch material like that is
all over Facebook and Tik Tok uploaded by Israeli soldiers and this past week
the Israeli military came clean about a telegram Channel it now
admits
it created called 72 Virgins Uncensored it proudly posted among other things
photos of desecrated Palestinian bodies whether it's coming from soldiers or individuals all the Israeli ministries documenting abuse and destruction in Gaza
is part of a celebratory culture of violence against Palestinians that exists
in Israeli Society soldiers are all too comfortable sharing evidence of their
own war crimes because they do not fear the consequences even with the ongoing
icj investigation they know from experience
that
they won't be held accountable thanks dark for Israel's primary backer in its
war on Gaza the United States getting the messaging right has not been easy and
the Israelis haven't helped not with the imagery their soldiers have been
sending from the war zone or the genocidal statements that many of their
politicians have made that's put the Netanyahu government at odds with the
Biden Administration behind the scenes in public in the middle of it all stands
the US National Security Council
spokesperson
John Kirby the White House Podium has not been an easy place for him not
recently we have seen some uncomfortable exchanges with reporters that have
made their way into news broadcasts viral Clips online and even gifts Kirby has
maintained an aggressive approach in his delivery whether audiences believe him
or not is another matter the listening posts make Shirazi now on John Kirby
and the challenge of selling a message that fewer and fewer people are buying I
have John Kirby here the admin is here to give an update on what's
happening
in the Middle East and take any foreign policy questions you may have in the
career of any senior Washington spokesperson nothing turns up the intensity
quite like a war for the man who has been behind the podium in the White House
Press briefing room through the Gaza War retired at middle John Kirby the
Global Spotlight has been sharp John Kirby in Washington the National Security spokesman
there John Kirby said he can I take it person as a personal insult Mr Kirby
would just stand there on the podium of the White House and say
meritless
counterproductive baseless forget about it his job in this role is to keep
things from escalating he does a pretty good job of staying on message but more
so his job is not to further inflame I am not going to address this issue from
this Podium I'm just not going to do it it's a hard job especially now with the
way um communication flows and the policy positions Kirby has to justify also
make the job hard such as when he called the genocide case brought against
Israel at the International Court of
Justice
meritless counterproductive and completely without any basis in fact whatsoever
Kirby continued being dismissive of the case during the week of the hearing at
the ha there's no basis for um accusations of genocide against Israel
that's not a word that ought to be thrown around lightly and we certainly don't
believe that it applies here now by the end of the month the icj made its
disagreement with that assessment clear ordering by a margin of 15 judges to
two that Israel must quote
prevent
genocidal Violence by its Armed Forces Israeli forces have killed thousands
hundreds of thousands of people at risk of starvation um who are displaced so
by that magnitude alone one can into it that there is some form of mass human
rights issues here by dismissing this claim of genocide it allows Mr Kirby and
other Administration officials to sort of then work around confronting and
addressing the fact that there is so much mass scale misery that the United
States might be actively complicit in the Biden Administration
has
three primary Messengers putting out the US's official line on what's happening
in Israel's war on Gaza there are the State Department Representatives the
White House Press Secretary and John Kirby whose title is coordinator for
strategic Communications at the National Security Council but who speaks from
the podium at the White House Kirby and other spokespeople are operating in a
media climate where challenges can come not just from journalists in press
rooms or news Studios but from the material
reporters
trapped in Gaza are putting out their videos have flooded social media and have
even jumped into mainstream news reporting tonight News at 10 has evidence of a
group of unarmed Palestinians coming under Fire one of the group was hit and
fatally wounded as our cameraman filmed carry him they've killed him yells this
youth then suddenly more gunfire that ITV report was brought up at a state
department briefing the spokesman had to claim in essence that he couldn't see
what everyone else who saw the report could I have seen those
that footage um but uh I U am not going to comment on the specifics around that
give and I'm not aware of the full circumstances on the ground dodging
difficult questions and evading evidence that conflicts with us positions it's part
of any spokesperson's job for Kirby and the others they are doing that work as
approval of the US's handling of Israel's war on Gaza nose Dives US policy
toward Gaza is not overwhelmingly popular in the United States polling shows
that there's a tremendous number
of
people who are very ill at ease CBS News poll is sh showing most Americans
disapprove of President Biden's handling of the Israel-Hamas war and there are
mass demonstrations in the United States there are about close to 60 members of
Congress who've called for a ceasefire uh four US senators have done the same
and so through Kirby has tremendous strengths as a communicator there I think
is some question about whether his enthusiasm for the administration's position
goes over as well as opposed to
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| Imran khan news Does anyone believe Pakistan's election results? |
one
that is a little more nuanced and touches with the real debate that's going
on in the United States Nuance is not something Washington spokespeople are
known for however within DC circles Kirby's lack of it hasn't been of any
detriment to his reputation 2 months into the war on Gaza The Washington Post
the paper considered a must-read in the US capital put out this fawning piece
about Kirby the headline talked up his commanding presence and yet fewer and
fewer Americans are buying the administration's message
by
and large media coverage of Israel-Palestine relations in the United States has
been uh at best mixed and often very poorly done you see a reflection of
administration policy and Insider foreign policy consensus rather than a
reflection of the real and whole debate and so it's not overly surprising that
you've got folks with the Washington Post saying Kirby's a commanding presence
and he's very impressive and all these things but one core question you
might ask is is he effective the notion that this white
house
has convinced the American people that its approach to Gaza is the right one I
mean that's very much Up For Debate there are a few things that make a senior
spokesperson for any Administration successful one is of course just
institutional knowledge another aspect is experience he Not only was doing
Communications and press for the Pentagon the state department the Navy he as
well had a stint on CNN as a security analyst joining me now is retired rear
Admiral John Kirby CNN military analyst for so he's built up a
lot
of Goodwill both with the Press Corps and with those who kind of see this man
as a respectable voice on these issues Hamas deliberately shelters itself
inside residential buildings hospitals and schools basically on purpose putting
civilians in the line of fire and what Israel trying to do is get them out of
the line of fire so the influence Kirby has with the media has had an impact on
mainstream reporting on the Gaza war in the US Kirby teared up on the air in
the days after the Hamas attack on Israel but I've never seen
anything
like this I uh it sorry it's it's very excuse me very difficult to look at
these Images Jake he hasn't succumbed to such emotion over over civilian debts
in Gaza and has even contested the notion that the Israeli Army might be
targeting Palestinian journalists your question presumes that they are
deliberately maliciously going out to kill journalists and I've seen we've seen
no indication that they have done that the US will always start at a place
where they're pro-Israel his
response
was they have no hard evidence that that is happening and and keep in mind
lying is different from just controlling the flow of information which is very
important, especially in a situation like this where there's a lot at stake
emotions are high a lot is happening that on the ground that most
civilians are not aware of at least not its totality for the 4 months that the
war in Gaza has blazed on John Kirby has been steadfast at the podium and in
new Studios footage of hospitals Under Siege
have
not pushed him off message evidence of mass starvation has not altered his
talking points even the Israeli government's blatant counter-messaging to the
US's statements of diplomacy have not shaken Kirby's line of argument for some
Kirby's message discipline is admirable for many others horrified by the
brutality in Gaza the dogged support of Israel's methods of war is unforgivable
Kirby's numerous sound bites have been recorded for posterity and they will
remain for history to judge
we
close where we started with 2024 the year of the election there are another 53
to come all over the world culminating in the US Presidential vote in November
in many of those elections like Pakistan's the mainstream media will play a
central role in affecting outcomes at times and not always for the better we'll be
tracking those stories examining the journalism and the effect that news
coverage can have on democracies everywhere here at the listening post
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