Election code violation case: Imran submits apology

Agencies

August 10, 2018

Islamabad, Aug 10: Pakistan Prime Minister-in-waiting Imran Khan on Friday submitted a written apology and an affidavit to the election commission for violating the electoral code of conduct while casting his vote in the general election on July 25, media reports said.

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has reserved its verdict in the case, Geo News reported.

The ECP had sought a signed apology from Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairperson Khan for violating the electoral code of conduct by casting his vote publicly instead of going behind the voting screen.

The written reply and the affidavit were submitted by Khan during the hearing held by a four-member bench headed by Chief Election Commissioner Sardar Muhammad Raza, the report said.

The commission on Thursday rejected the response submitted by his counsel Babar Awan who had stated that his client did not intentionally stamp his ballot publicly.

He had sought an end to the case and requested the ECP to issue the notification for Khan's victory from NA-53 Islamabad constituency.

The suo motu case against Khan was heard after the ECP took notice of him publicly stamping the ballot paper in NA-53 Islamabad constituency, instead of going behind the voting screen to cast his vote in secrecy.

According to the reply by Khan's counsel, photos of Khan's ballot were taken without his permission and the curtain, used around the ballot for secrecy, had fallen due to the crowd inside the polling booth.

Imran won the NA-53 seat by defeating former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, bagging 92,891 votes in contrast to the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz leader's 44,314 votes.

The electoral body has withheld the notification of his success from the constituency in view of the pending case.

According to the election act, a person can be given a six-month jail sentence and/or fine of Rs 1,000 for not casting his/her vote in secrecy.

On July 30, the ECP had sought a written reply from Khan, who has been nominated by the PTI as the next Prime Minister after the party emerged as the largest in the National Assembly in the election.

The 65-year-old PTI leader had contested from five constituencies and had won from all of them. But the ECP has only granted him temporary permission to take oath as a Member of the National Assembly, pending the outcome of the case of violation of the electoral code of conduct.

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Trump’s associates told to avoid racist language making them ‘look like Nazis’

News Network

November 18,2024

Advisors to US President-elect Donald Trump have instructed his allies and associates to refrain from using the inflammatory language they previously employed when discussing issues related to migrants and the deportation of asylum seekers, in a bid to avoid “looking like Nazis.”

US media reports said that Trump’s associates had been asked to stop using the word “camps” to describe potential facilities that would be used to accommodate migrants rounded up in deportation operations across the country.

The reports said the US president-elect’s allies had been ordered to stave off such charged terms as they would bring to mind “Nazis,” and be used against Trump.

“I have received some guidance to avoid terms, like ‘camps,’ that can be twisted and used against the president, yes,” one Trump ally told American monthly magazine Rolling Stone.

“Apparently, some people think it makes us look like Nazis.”

The presidential advisers also cautioned surrogates and allies to keep racist terms, which have dogged Trump’s campaign, out of their remarks.

They said with Trump’s heated rhetoric that used to compare undocumented immigrants to “animals” and his slight that they are “poisoning the blood of our country,” detractors did not need to reach too far to find parallels to Nazi Germany.

Stephen Miller, who Trump tapped to be his deputy chief of staff of policy, specifically used the word “camps” to describe holding facilities that he hoped the military could put together for immigrants.

Tom Homan, who served as the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and is chosen by Trump to be in charge of the US borders, was no stranger to such language.

“It’s not gonna be a mass sweep of neighborhoods,” he said in an interview earlier this week. “It’s not gonna be building concentration camps. I’ve read it all. It’s ridiculous.”

Becoming a little more forthright about the new government’s aggressive deportation plans, Homan likened the early days of the Trump administration to the initial invasion of Iraq in 2003.

“I got three words for them – shock and awe,” he said. “You’re going to see us take this country back.”

Trump made immigration a central element of his 2024 presidential campaign but unlike his first run, which was mainly focused on building a border wall, he has shifted his attention to interior enforcement and the removal of undocumented immigrants already in the United States.

People close to the US president and his aides are laying the groundwork for expanding detention facilities to fulfill his mass deportation campaign promise.

The businessman-turned-politician deported more than 1.5 million people during his first term.

The figure do not include the millions of people turned away at the border under a Covid-era policy enacted by Trump and used during most of Biden’s term.

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