My ‘Free Imran Khan’ T-shirt arrived yesterday. They are available from Cricket et al — the Gideon Haigh and Peter Lalor led site that is a must for cricket fans. I chose a maroon background, which in retrospect belongs more to a Windies colour scheme, but I’m not sure I have the skin tones to pull off Pakistani lime green.
I bought the shirt after reading this Peter Lalor article:
Imran Khan has been detained in solitary confinement for 22 months, and as a Greg Chappell led campaign has highlighted, his health is now failing and he is not receiving adequate treatment. He hasn’t seen his sons. He’s had inadequate access to his legal team. He has received multiple bail adjudications for the charges against him, but is never released, as the regime relies on other charges for which he hasn’t received bail.
The corruption charges appear to be trumped up and politically motivated. Imran is the last democratically elected leader of Pakistan, and his popularity is a threat to current PM Shehbaz Sharif, who succeeded him after a non confidence motion in 2022.
Imran’s wife, Bushra Bibi has also been imprisoned, and has a 31 year sentence to serve. His former wife, Jemima Goldsmith has been vocal in her support for Imran and Bushra, and has alleged that Elon Musk era Twitter is muting her tweets advocating for his release and for the right of their sons to visit their father. This is all covered in the Peter Lalor article above.
I love Imran the cricketer, and statistically, he’s in the conversation for best all rounder of all time. I also think he was a courageous and well meaning prime minister, whose conservative religious convictions don’t match my own, but I think he fought corruption, advocated for the poor, and in a difficult COVID ravaged era, did his very best for the people of Pakistan.
He doesn’t deserve this human rights abuse. Nobody does.
Things you can do:
Contact Pakistan’s High Commissioner in Australia, Mr Irfan Shaukat counsellor@pakistan.org.au
Contact Penny Wong - this is her contact us page www.foreignminister.gov.au/contact-foreign-minister
Buy a Cricket et Al ‘Free Imran Khan’ tee
Share this post, or the Cricket et al post that got me going. (thanks Gerard Dowling)
Treat him with Dignity - Fourteen captains come out in support of Imran Khan - ESPN Feb18, 2026
I interviewed Imran just before he became PM, and ghosted a chapter for Austin Robertson’s ‘Cricket Outlaws: Inside Kerry Packer’s Revolution’. I’ll post that in the next couple of days.
A post from some time ago about another Pakistani great.
