Pakistan: Khan family arrests raise stakes ahead of protests

Family members of Pakistan's former Prime Minister Imran Khan are concerned about the 73-year-old's health in a Rawalpindi prison and have accused authorities of preventing him from accessing appropriate medical care.

Khan's London-based sons, Sulaiman and Kasim Khan, told DW they had received "little to no information" about their father's health.

"When we last spoke to him on the phone back in March, he said that he had lost 85% of the vision in his right eye and that despite his complaints, it was neglected for months," they said.

The brothers added that their father was being held in a tiny cell and has been allowed outside for only one or two hours a day. They also alleged he was kept in isolation from family , lawyers and a personal physician for 10 months before he was briefly allowed to see two of his sisters.

Meanwhile, the opposition Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party has planned a protest march on September 27 to exert pressure on the government of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif for Khan's release.

Khan's sons have urged authorities to allow their father access to a personal physician and to restore regular access to his family and phone calls.

"We are asking the Pakistani authorities to obey the Supreme Court orders immediately and shift our father to Shifa International Hospital so that he can be assessed by independent doctors," they said.

From jail, Khan remains at the center of Pakistan's political confrontation between the PTI and the country's powerful military. He remains a popular political figure in Pakistan, despite being ousted from office in 2022 a parliamentary no-confidence vote.