"It is a human-rights emergency.”
Jemima Goldsmith has urged Prime Minister Andy Burnham and Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband to help her imprisoned ex-husband Imran Khan.
She tweeted: “Prime Minister @andyburnham and Foreign Secretary @Ed_Miliband: how much longer will Britain remain silent?”
Khan has been imprisoned in Pakistan since 2023 following convictions in several cases. His Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party has maintained that the cases against him are politically motivated.
Goldsmith claimed her former husband was being “brutally penalised by his political opponents”.
Goldsmith said Khan had spent three years in solitary confinement and claimed his family had been denied contact with him for almost 10 months.
She said he had also been denied access to books, lawyers and doctors.
Goldsmith also referred to the United Nations’ Nelson Mandela Rules:
“Under the UN’s Nelson Mandela Rules, solitary confinement lasting more than 15 consecutive days is prohibited and amounts to torture.”
Her comments come after Pakistan’s Supreme Court ordered medical treatment for Khan and directed authorities to provide access to his personal doctor, regular family visits and twice-weekly calls with his sons.
Goldsmith claimed the court’s orders were being ignored and said:
“This is no longer simply a Pakistani political matter. It is a human-rights emergency.”
Goldsmith highlighted Khan’s “deep and lifelong ties” to the UK, which included time studying at Oxford University and playing county cricket in England.
She also pointed to their two sons, Sulaiman and Kasim, who are British citizens.
Goldsmith said the pair had been unable to visit their father and had been prevented from maintaining regular contact with him.
She continued: “They have been forced to watch their father’s health decline from thousands of miles away, prevented from visiting him, denied visas, publicly threatened by government officials with arrest themselves, and even denied court-mandated regular phone calls.”
Goldsmith said she had repeatedly appealed to the UK government to intervene over Khan’s treatment.
She also claimed former Foreign Secretary David Lammy had told her in writing that Britain would not intervene if her sons were arrested while travelling to Pakistan to visit their father.
Prime Minister @andyburnham and Foreign Secretary @Ed_Miliband : how much longer will Britain remain silent?
For three years the father of my two sons, and Pakistan’s former Prime Minister, Imran Khan, has been brutally penalised by his political opponents, in a personal…
— Jemima Goldsmith (@Jemima_Khan) August 24, 2026
Jemima Goldsmith called on the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office to publicly pressure Pakistan to comply with the Supreme Court’s orders.
She wrote:
“Britain must now speak out publicly and unequivocally.”
She called for Khan’s medical access and contact with his family to be restored, his prolonged isolation to end and his fundamental human rights to be upheld, adding:
“This is an appeal to the new Burnham government to please now do the right thing.”
This comes as former cricket captains, including Sir Alastair Cook and Kapil Dev, urge Pakistan to ensure Imran Khan receives “humane treatment and proper medical care”.
