PTI leaders call for symbolic hunger strike

Islamabad: Senior PTI leader Asad Qaiser on Tuesday said the party had called for a symbolic hunger strike against Parliament, demanding the National Assembly speaker’s intervention against the persecution and harassment of party leaders.

To register their protest, PTI Chairman Gohar Khan, Qaiser, Ali Muhammad Khan and several other PTI leaders were present outside the Parliament.

Speaking to the media, Qaiser said that the party had started a local protest against their victimisation.

“We don’t want to create any [unfavourable] law and order situation in the country,” Qaiser told journalists while sitting outside the parliament.

“But given what is happening to us — the ongoing campaign against us, the pressure on our MNAs, the cases against them, and the offers being made to sway their loyalties — what other option do we have?” he said.

On the other hand, Gohar Khan said that parliamentarians did not need permission to stage a protest on the premises of the Parliament.

“This is our right, we are parliamentarians, and parliamentarians are entitled to conduct themselves however they want within the premises of the parliament”, he said. “We can express our opinions [here] however we want.”

He said the protest conveyed the party’s position against the “injustice, unfairness, and the illegal and unconstitutional things that are happening [to us].”

He added that PTI parliamentarians were staging a sit-in to uphold the law and the constitution, despite having reservations about some “strangers” occupying parliamentary positions.