Pakistan Seals Its Capital With 1,500 Shipping Containers as a Court Strikes Down Travel Controls

Pakistani authorities barricaded Islamabad with more than 1,500 shipping containers to stop opposition protesters from reaching the capital, closing off major routes into the city ahead of a march that Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) had called for September 27 to demand the release of jailed former prime minister Imran Khan. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Sohail Afridi, who was to lead the march, announced on Friday that PTI postponed the long march and will instead launch it from Peshawar on October 4. A senior party figure said PTI had already achieved its aim of forcing the government to seal the capital and spend heavily on security, without needing to complete the march itself. The containers are the government's standard instrument for managing large demonstrations, and each deployment removes freight equipment from commercial use and halts movement through the capital region.

The courts moved in the opposite direction. The Islamabad High Court declared unconstitutional a provision of the Passport Rules of 2021 that allowed officials to place a citizen's name on the Passport Control List on the recommendation of government agencies without identifying a competent authority or providing a hearing. The same courts have been active elsewhere: an antiterrorism court acquitted seven more policemen for lack of evidence in the 2018 killing of Naqeebullah Mehsud, after earlier acquitting the officer who commanded the operation.

The economic context is tight. Analysts expect consumer inflation to slow to about 10.75 percent in September, a projection that assumes oil stays between $90 and $100 a barrel while the Gulf war continues. A government managing double-digit inflation, an external financing need and a closed Hormuz spent heavily to seal its own capital against a march that its opponents chose to postpone rather than complete.