Lt.Gen Mango

In January 1965, Fatima Jinnah – sister of Pakistan's founder, Madar-e-Millat – stood for elections against Field Marshal Ayub Khan. The regime's answer was to brand her pro-Indian and pro-American. The public was barred from the official campaign meetings where she might have won them over. History settled the question. She is remembered as the Mother of the Nation. The law holding my mother @DrUzma_KhanPK and my aunts @Aleema_KhanPK and @Noreen_KhanPK today, the Maintenance of Public Order Ordinance, was issued in 1960 – under Ayub Khan. Sixty-one years on, the sisters of another popular leader are held without charge under this law. Charge them or release them. #FreeImranKhanAndFamily

ANATOMY OF OPPRESSION | No. 1 The tactic: imprison the leader Remove the person around whom opposition gathers, and the movement is meant to scatter. South Korea, August 1973. Opposition leader Kim Dae-jung is abducted from a Tokyo hotel by his own country's intelligence agency, bound, blindfolded and taken to sea with weights tied to his body. Intervention from Washington and Tokyo saves his life. Five days later he is home – under house arrest. What followed was 14 years of the same treatment, in rotation: – 1976: imprisoned for leading a declaration calling for democracy. Nearly three years behind bars, then house arrest – 1980: arrested again after a new military takeover, and sentenced to death for sedition – 1981–82: sentence commuted under international pressure, then pushed into exile in the US – 1985: returns home, is arrested at the airport, and placed straight back under house arrest Why it works – for a while: – The charge is framed as national security, not politics – A courtroom gives persecution the appearance of law – Rotating prison, house arrest and exile keeps the leader permanently out of reach of his people Why it failed: – Human rights groups and foreign governments never stopped campaigning – Each new arrest made him a bigger symbol of everything the regime denied – In 1987, mass protests forced the military-backed government to concede direct presidential elections He lost that first election when the opposition split its vote. He ran again, and again. In December 1997, the man once sentenced to death was elected President of South Korea. In 2000, he received the Nobel Peace Prize. A prison can hold a man. It has never held an idea for long.