New Delhi: Pakistan has reportedly deported a British senior journalist, Charles Glass because he wanted to interview “his friend” and former PM Imran Khan, who is currently in jail.
72-year-old Glass had earlier sought permission from Pakistan Federal Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi via email to meet Khan, citing a court order that allowed such a visit. But his request was denied. He had arrived in Islamabad last week.
Speaking to ThePrint, senior journalist Hamid Mir, who works at GeoTV, condemned the deportation and said it violated Pakistani law.
“Meeting Imran Khan is not a crime. If some state officials have met Imran Khan many times inside the jail quietly and that was not against the law, then a British citizen wanting to meet Imran Khan in broad daylight according to the law was(is?) not a crime. Those who deported him violated the Pakistani law,” he said.
He also added that deporting anyone who was not involved in an armed assault or espionage against Pakistan is condemnable.
Martial law, fascist rule
In a video, Glass can be heard saying that he was barred from visiting Khan despite his close personal ties with him. The journalist stated that he was in the country as Khan’s friend rather than in any official or activist capacity.
In a May article supporting the release of Julian Assange and Imran Khan, Glass had argued that both figures were imprisoned for challenging US interests, GeoTV reported.
Khan’s sister Aleema Khan posted on X about the incident, “When Mohsin Naqvi has to resort to deporting Imran Khan’s friends visiting from overseas, it speaks volumes about the government’s state of mind and panic. First, their guilt and fear was visible to us in Pakistan. Now, it is evident internationally as well.”
She added that the senior journalist’s visa was also cancelled and the police escorted him to the airport, asking him to leave immediately.
Glass was at senior journalist Zahid Hussain’s house when the police visited him for interrogation and asked him to leave immediately. The local police, however, refused any such activity, Dawn reported.
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) put out an official statement on X calling it “undeclared martial law” and an effort by the ruling parties, supported by the military, to suppress information about Khan’s detention and his alleged mistreatment. PTI’s statements and social media posts highlight concerns about the suppression of press freedom and the control of political narratives by the current government.
One X user called it a ‘genocide’ of PTI members. Others called it a ‘fascist rule’ in Pakistan.
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Who is Charles Glass?
Glass, an American-British author, journalist, broadcaster, and publisher with a focus on the Middle East, is considered a close friend of Khan.
He served as the chief Middle East correspondent for ABC News from 1983 to 1993 and has also reported for Newsweek and The Observer.
Glass has authored several notable books, including Tribes With Flags: A Dangerous Passage Through the Chaos of the Middle East (1991) and Money for Old Rope: Disorderly Compositions (1992).
Among Glass’s prominent stories is his 1985 interview with the crew of TWA Flight 847 on the tarmac of Beirut Airport after the plane was hijacked. In 1987, Glass was abducted and held hostage for two months by Shiite Muslim captors before he managed to escape.
The following year, he revealed Saddam Hussein’s then-covert biological weapons program, but his claims were dismissed by the US government until Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Additionally, during the Kurdish rebellion in 1991, Glass was the sole US television correspondent covering the events in northern Iraq.
(Edited by Prasanna Bachchhav)