Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan during a media talk with journalists on Tuesday made an inappropriate remark about journalist Ghareeda Farooqui, claiming that she was ‘bound to be harassed’ if she kept invading male-dominated spaces.
These remarks were made during the PTI chief’s meeting with the National Press Club and the Rawalpindi-Islamabad Union of Journalists at his residence in Banigala on Tuesday. Responding to a question about the harassment of women journalists at PTI rallies, he said that he would be issuing special instructions to his supporters in that regard.
He then named Ghareeda Farooqui and said that she was ‘bound to be harassed’ if she kept inserting herself in male-dominated spaces at protests and rallies etc. “Wherever Ghareeda Farooqui saw men, she would try to insert herself, like waving a red flag at a bull,” he said, asking, “Now how is that our fault?”
During this meeting he also talked about Hamid Mir’s suspension from hosting his Geo TV show ‘Capital Talk’, in May of 2021, after the journalist had spoken out against the military. Imran said that the military had pressured Mir Shakil-ur-Rehman into suspending Mir, asking, “As a prime minister, what could I do?”
Imran also took a dig at Chief of Army Staff Qamar Javed Bajwa, and urged the participants of the meeting to ask him anything ‘freely’ as he ‘does not get offended as easily as General Bajwa does’.
He can’t shake off male chauvinism despite being 70 and suffers from severe foot in mouth disease.