Aziz M

When the courts belong to the regime, every petition is decided before it is heard. ANATOMY OF OPPRESSION | No. 3: Silence the courts The Philippines, September 1972. President Ferdinand Marcos declares martial law, and among the first people arrested is opposition senator Ninoy Aquino, the man widely expected to succeed him. Aquino petitions the Supreme Court for his freedom, but in 1974 the court upholds both martial law and his detention. Three years later, a military commission sentences him to death by firing squad. Why it works: – A court ruling turns an arbitrary detention into something that looks like law – Every rejected petition tells the next detainee that there is no point in trying – The regime no longer has to defend itself, because it can simply say the courts have spoken Why it failed: – Aquino refused to break. He spent seven years and seven months in prison, part of it in solitary confinement, and went on a 40-day hunger strike. After two heart attacks he was allowed to go to the United States for surgery, and three years later, warned that he could be killed, he flew back to Manila anyway. He was shot dead at the airport on 21 August 1983. – His widow, Cory, who had never held public office, stood against Marcos in the 1986 election. – Marcos declared himself the winner and refused to accept the result. The election's own computer technicians walked out rather than help rig the count, and hundreds of thousands of people poured onto the streets of Manila. Four days later, Marcos fled the country, and Cory Aquino became president. No court ever freed Ninoy Aquino. His family and his people did. When the courts go silent, the people have to rise. A dictator is always more afraid of the people than the people are of him. There are 250 million of us. We need to realise the power we have. Where have you seen this playbook? #FreeImranAndFamily

The British jailed two brothers for their politics. Then their mother took their place. In 1915, in the middle of the First World War, the British detained Mohammad Ali Jauhar and Shaukat Ali, two of the most popular Muslim leaders in India, for speaking and writing in support of Ottoman Turkey. They were held for four years without trial. While her sons were locked away, their elderly mother, Abadi Bano Begum – known to everyone as "Bi Amman" – stepped into the struggle herself. In 1917 she addressed the All-India Muslim League, and she went on to travel the country, speaking, raising funds and rallying people to the cause. Gandhi called her mother. The brothers were released in 1919, only to be put on trial in Karachi two years later for sedition. They did not deny the charge, and they were sent back to prison for another two years. In 1930, at the Round Table Conference in London, Mohammad Ali told the British that if they would not give India its freedom, they would have to give him a grave there. He died in London two months later. Seventeen years after that, the Raj was gone. In 1990, Pakistan honoured Bi Amman with a postage stamp. Today, @ImranKhanPTI is in jail for his politics. His sisters took up his cause, and so the state jailed them too. Empires that jail families do not last, but the families are remembered. Will this regime be any different? #FreeImranAndFamily