It is a matter of great shame that an elected representative of a people that have borne immense losses at the frontiers of a global conflict continues to languish in prison.
Ali Wazir, leader of the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM), has remained imprisoned for two years on a host of sedition and anti-terror charges.
Born in 1976 in South Waziristan, Ali Wazir is a vociferous advocate and campaigner for rights of the Pashtun people. Ali’s family, the Ahmadzai Wazir tribe, has laid 18 men to rest since 2003 for their opposition to the Talibanisation of the erstwhile tribal areas, all of them brutally murdered by militants. After having been elected to the National Assembly in 2018 from NA-50 as an independent candidate, Ali Wazir was thrust to political prominence for his leadership of the PTM.
While the PTM has been described as a social movement with parallels to the Civil Rights Movement in the Jim Crow era of the American South, it has drawn significant criticism from nationalist quarters for being anti-state. Ali Wazir is no stranger to vociferous criticism of the Pakistan military and security establishment – particularly with his claims of widespread human rights violations by the military during anti-militant operations in South Waziristan in 2009.
The PTM’s rise as a grassroots movement has few parallels in Pakistan’s history. Composed of a generation of Pashtuns who have come of age during the War on Terror, the movement emerged in response to repression and violence that the Pashtun community has witnessed at the hands of American military adventurism in Afghanistan, the Taliban and Pakistan’s counter-militancy operations. With their chants of “da sanga azadi da?” (What kind of freedom is this?), the PTM’s supporters first made their way to the federal capital in January 2018 to protest the state’s indifference to their plight after the extrajudicial killing of Naqeebullah Mehsud in Karachi.
The PTM’s mainstreaming since is owed in large part to the election of Ali Wazir and Mohsin Dawar to National Assembly. Despite being a peaceful movement, seeking redress and reform from the state, the PTM has found no favour with the country’s security establishment.
The imprisonment of Ali Wazir is a microcosm of the state response to this rising Pashtun movement. The iron-fisted treatment stands in stark contrast to the leniency, tacit acceptance and clemency that the state security apparatus grants to extremist outfits it deems relevant to its strategic calculus. While the Supreme Court judges have questioned this contradiction, it has not manifested in his release from imprisonment. His current predicament is also a representative case of the security establishment’s selective, and literalist application of anti-terror and sedition law in Pakistan.
Wazir’s current legal troubles began in 2020 after he delivered firebrand speeches, which was allegedly considered anti-state and seditious by the establishment. Ever since, he has sought bail no less than four charges of sedition and inciting rebellion under the Pakistan Penal Code and Anti-Terrorism Act. Wazir and his PTM has been a target of the state’s ire -- for demanding accountability for excesses of the military operations in Pakistan’s tribal areas.
Since he was removed from the office of prime minister, Imran Khan has routinely used foul language for the military establishment in his speeches, going so far as to single out specific generals. But he has yet to face the brute force of the state’s legal machinery.
While the mainstream news media chronicles the PTI’s political circus extensively, the PTM receives hardly any attention. Yet, the PTM has such a wide base of support among Pashtuns that it has been met with international acclaim for adherence to non-violence. Both Mohsin Dawar and Ali Wazir rejected Imran Khan’s overtures to join the PTI’s ruling coalition in 2018, and were arrested following the Khar Qamar massacre in June 2019.
The official narrative claims that the PTM assaulted security personnel. But multiple amateur videos of the incident suggest otherwise. Despite a media blackout and state propaganda, the PTM has maintained its support base – a testament to the popularity of its core message.
What the Editorial Board at The Friday Times finds tragic about Wazir’s imprisonment is that since being removed from the office of prime minister, Imran Khan has routinely used foul language for the military establishment in his speeches, going so far as to single out specific generals. But he has yet to face the brute force of the state’s legal machinery. The difference between Ali Wazir and Imran Khan is that while the former advocates for accountability and transparency for all state institutions, the latter wishes to be the security establishment’s chosen surrogate in the political class.
Ali Wazir is ultimately a prisoner of conscience. It is a matter of great shame that an elected representative of a people that have borne immense losses at the frontiers of a global conflict continues to languish in prison. Parliamentarians from various mainstream political parties – from Shahbaz Gill, to Javed Latif and Azam Swati – have all been booked on sedition charges in recent memory. All of them have been subsequently released on bail. It seems like the security establishment is intent on adding insult to injury for the Pashtuns of the merged areas.
For his unwavering commitment to the protection of human rights in the erstwhile Federally Administered Tribal Areas and courage in choosing imprisonment rather than kowtowing to the powers that be, The Friday Times announces Ali Wazir as our Person of the Year in 2022.
(by Hamza Hashim)