Imran Khan applies from prison to be Chancellor of Oxford University

Could Imran Khan become the next chancellor of Britain's prestigious Oxford University? The 71-year-old former prime minister of Pakistan, who has been languishing in Adiala Prison in Rawalpindi since August 2023, has decided to run for the honorary post vacated by Chris Patten, the last governor of Hong Kong, who is about to retire. Sayed Zulfiqar Bukhari, spokesman for his party, the Pakistan Movement for Justice (Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf), confirmed his candidacy on Sunday, August 18. The former cricket star is already an honorary fellow of Keble College, Oxford, where he studied philosophy, politics and economics in the 1970s. His two sons live in London with their mother Jemima Goldsmith, daughter of billionaire James Goldsmith.

The reason for his candidacy was not made clear. Does Khan want to regain his visibility on the international stage? Is this the prelude to a possible exile? That is not certain, as he has always stressed that he would never leave his country, unlike his predecessor Nawaz Sharif, who was ousted from power in 2017 and negotiated his departure to London, officially for health reasons, to get out of prison.

Defeated by a no-confidence vote in parliament in 2022, Khan was jailed after threatening mass street protests against the military, which he blamed for his ouster. He is unlikely to be released from his cell. He is the subject of about a hundred trials, and after each legal victory, the authorities bring a new charge against him. The country's most popular man poses too great a threat to the Sharif clan that rules the country, but also to the army. Despite the obstacles his party faced in the February parliamentary elections, voters put his candidates ahead.

On July 13, an Islamabad court acquitted him and his third wife, Bushra Bibi, and ordered his release. However, he and his wife remained in custody. The couple had been sentenced to seven years in prison in the first instance on charges of violating Islamic law by failing to observe the prescribed time period between Bibi's divorce and their wedding.

Constant monitoring

In a written interview granted to British news channel ITV News through his lawyers on Tuesday, Khan testified to his prison conditions. “For almost a year now, I have been locked up in a 7-by-8-foot death cell, a room normally reserved for terrorists and death row inmates. I am under constant surveillance and have no privacy,” he said, assuring that he was “mentally and physically prepared for the fight ahead.” “Real democratic change and freedom in Pakistan have never been easy,” he added.

You still have 36.17% of this article to read. The rest is for subscribers only.