In what opposition leaders and rights advocates decry as another chapter of political persecution, a Pakistani anti-terrorism court on Monday sentenced senior Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leaders Omar Ayub and Shibli Faraz—opposition leaders in the National Assembly and Senate respectively—to ten years in prison each over their alleged role in the May 9 unrest. Fifty-seven others were convicted alongside them in the case linked to an attack on the Faisalabad residence of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) stalwart Rana Sanaullah, reported by The Express Tribune.
The court handed ten-year terms to a total of 59 defendants, 17 of them senior PTI leaders. Sixteen others, including MPA Sheikh Shahid Javed, received three-year sentences. Former federal minister Fawad Chaudhry and PTI lawmaker Zain Qureshi, however, were acquitted.
The sentences are part of a sweeping series of trials against PTI members stemming from the violent protests that erupted after the dramatic arrest of PTI founder and former prime minister Imran Khan from the Islamabad High Court on May 9, 2023. In a parallel case last month, the same court convicted 108 PTI leaders—among them Omar Ayub, Shibli Faraz, Zartaj Gul, and Sahibzada Hamid Raza—while acquitting 77 others. Dozens of convicted leaders were each handed ten-year prison terms.
Critics say the trials reflect a coordinated campaign by Pakistan’s ruling establishment and military to sideline PTI, once the country’s most popular political force. They point to selective prosecutions, lengthy prison terms, and the repeated exclusion of Khan himself from electoral politics as evidence of an authoritarian crackdown masquerading as counterterrorism.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court recently granted bail to Khan in eight May 9-related cases, citing the principle of consistency with rulings favoring other PTI leaders. “The case of the petitioner has to be positively considered,” Chief Justice Yahya Afridi wrote in a four-page order.
Yet the convictions of Ayub, Faraz, and other senior figures appear to signal the state’s determination to dismantle PTI’s leadership core—an effort many warn risks eroding Pakistan’s already fragile democratic framework.
