Imran Khan announces to protest against drone strikes in front of United Nations
Wednesday, October 10th, 2012 1:45:15 by Faisal Farooq
Imran Khan, the cricketer-turned-politician, has said that they will go to New York and stage a protest outside the United Nations against US drone strikes.
While speaking to the media, he declared his peace-march an achievement and announced two more steps to pace up his campaign against US drone strikes – a rally in front of the United Nation and a signature campaign.
He noted, “I’ll lead a demonstration outside the UN headquarters in New York on Oct 26 submitting a petition to its authorities that drone attacks are a violation of UN charter as well as international laws and human rights.”
He also stated that a signature-campaign would also be initiated to get millions of signatures for putting pressure on the US government regarding the drone attacks. He also said, “We will also try to get Angelina Jolie there too.”
In his view, the anti-drone rally was also a success as it forced presidential hopeful Mitt Romney to criticize President Barack Obama for excessive use of drones.
He further stated that the only way to bring peace to the insurgency-hit region was to visibly pull out of US war, calling for an end to drone strikes and entrusting the armed tribes to police their own areas.
Stressing that peace could not be achieved without winning hearts of local people, he explained that the major objective of his rally was to take tribal heads on board.
He observed, “The day PTI comes into power, we will tell them [US] to stop drones, we are a sovereign, democratic country. We take responsibility that there will be no terrorism from Pakistan, but you cannot dictate to us,”
Although the former cricketer condemned the brutal attack on the teenage peace activist Malala Yousafzai, he didn’t condemn the Taliban who had claimed responsibility for the attack.
Defended his decision not to be so candid he said, “We have local affiliates and supporters. Sure I can give big statements against the Taliban, but that would make them [supporters] Taliban targets.”
Tags: America, Angelina jolie, Drone strikes, Imran Khan, Malala Yousafzai, New York, President Barack Obama, PTI, South Waziristan, Taliban, TTP, UN, USShort URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=33867
Posted by Faisal Farooq
on Oct 10 2012. Filed under National, Pakistan.
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We did trust the tribes to police there own areas and what happen, 7/7 and 9/11, the tribes have proven they cant govern the areas beyond any reasonable doubt and the Pakistani government have proven it unwilling to tackle certain groups of militants and until those two facts change then we drone strikes should continue. An hopefully one of them will take out the cowards that tried to murder an innocent girl. Khan is a coward and Malala Yousafzai is ten time braver than he will ever be.
@David Knowles… Its very shallow to think only of 9/11 and 7/7. How about those 35k Pakistanis and many more Afghanis. And to think that drone strikes make world a safer place is preposterous beyond measures. Its very convenient to pass a judgement like you did, sitting in your comfy couch. But know the ground realities, read the independent sources, its a fact that drone strikes are completely counter-productive and serves as a bonanza for creating more militants…. there are many examples of it.