Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan

Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan (* 1918 in Khangarh , Punjab , Pakistan , † September 26, 2003 in Islamabad ) was a leading Pakistani opposition politician and opponent of General Pervez Musharraf .

biography

Khan worked as a lawyer after studying law and became one of the most respected advocates of democracy over the course of his 50 years as a lawyer , who on the other hand was arrested again and again during the military dictatorships in Pakistan .

He was the leader of the most important grouping of the opposition , the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy, as well as the resulting Pakistani Democratic Party. Opposing the influence of the Pakistani armed forces in politics, he spent several years in prisons during the 1960s and 1970s .

After General Pervez Musharraf came to power in 1999, he again became the leader of the political opposition, which in October 2002 at least managed to hold elections and, with Zafarullah Khan Jamali , the reinstatement of a prime minister . Nevertheless, Musharraf remained the highest political figure in the state as president and commander of the armed forces. Khan urged Musharraf to resign as army commander and also criticized several amendments to the general's constitution by decree that consolidated the power of the armed forces.

To increase the pressure on Musharraf, Khan traveled to London in September 2003 , where he met with former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto , who had been in self-elected exile there since 1999 . He also met in Saudi Arabia with the former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif , whose government was ousted by General Musharraf on October 12, 1999. Khan tried to press both of them to return to Pakistan, despite the expected imprisonment there, but failed.

literature

• Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan . In: Der Spiegel . No. 41 , 2003 ( online ).

Web links

• rulers.org