ISLAMABAD - Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf Chairman Imran Khan on Friday announced that his party and international human rights campaigners would approach the International Criminal Court (ICC) against the US for killing innocent Pakistanis in drone strikes.
Addressing an anti-drone protest rally, Khan said the so-called ongoing war on terror was causing huge losses not only to Pakistan but also to the US. “The level of militancy is surging with every incident of drone strike,” he said, lambasting all political parties for keeping mum over the issue. “In the resolution against drone attacks unanimously adopted by parliament, it was decided that NATO supply routes will be disconnected if the US carried out any more attacks but an attack occurred within 24 hours of the passage of that resolution,” Khan said, adding that it was shameful for parliament.
“No international law allows extrajudicial killing of a suspect along with his family,” Khan said, adding, “The nation is not pinning its hope on President Asif Zardari-led PPP as it came into power taking patronage of the NRO but the PML-N also disappointed the masses.” The PTI chief criticised the PML-N for holding a protest rally against the federal government in Lahore, saying if the party was against the federal government, it should have held the rally in Islamabad. Clive Stafford Smith, a British Human Rights activist and director of REPRIVE, called the US drones a criminal offence. He appealed to people to help him collect enough evidence to take up the issue in international courts.
Earlier, Imran Khan attended a Waziristan grand jirga against the drone strikes. Tribal elders, families of victims of drone strikes and human rights activists were also present. At the end of the jirga, the participants passed a unanimous resolution against drone strikes in Pakistan and appealed to the Supreme Court to take action against them. Khan’s former wife and renowned human right campaigner Jemima Khan was also present in the jirga.
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