Pakistan: Khan's arrest illegal

Pakistan's Supreme Court announced on Thursday that the arrest of former Prime Minister Imran Khan on corruption charges was "unlawful". The judges examined the request for release presented by Khan's defense minister and ordered his release. The court also asked Khan to appeal to his supporters to remain peaceful as the country faces growing unrest on the streets. The arrest of the politician has sparked a wave of protests by his supporters throughout the country, with clashes and violence.

More than 1,000 protesters have been arrested and in the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa there are also deaths and injuries. The provincial government has asked the interior ministry to deploy the army. Meanwhile, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk has called on the Pakistani security forces to "show restraint" and asked the demonstrators to "refrain from violence".

A Pakistani religious leader was lynched by the crowd for alleged blasphemous statements during a demonstration by the opposition Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), the party of former prime minister Imran Khan. A local police official confirmed this to "Al Jazeera", specifying that the victim, Nigar Alam, had been asked to hold an inspection in the square in the village of Sawaldher, a town in the Mardan district located in the north-western province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. According to an officer, Alam was killed by the mob after he "made some blasphemous remarks that enraged people."

The police had initially managed to get Alam to safety at a nearby shop, but the crowd broke down the door, forcibly dragging him out and beating him with batons to death. The video of the lynching was widely shared on social media, showing police officers trying in vain to stop the angry mob from beating the man. In February, an angry mob entered a police station in the eastern city of Lahore, Pakistan, snatched a person accused of blasphemy from his cell and killed him.