A day after Prime Minister Imran Khan’s interview to HBO sparked global controversy and people schooled him for being a rape apologist, it turns out that HBO edited out Khan’s complete stance on the matter by cherry-picking his words.
Khan’s interview was posted on Saturday on Axios’ website. The interview drew huge flak when the host, Jonathan Swan asked Khan that if he thinks what women wear has any effect on the temptation that leads to a surge in rape cases? To which Khan replied, “We don’t have discos here, we don’t have nightclubs, so it is a completely different society, way of life here, so if you raise temptation in society to the point and all these young guys have nowhere to go, it has consequences in the society.” “If a woman is wearing very few clothes, it will have an impact on the men, unless they’re robots. I mean it is common sense.”
Anchorperson: You were accused of rape victim blaming, how do you respond to that?
PM Imran Khan: It is #SuchNonsense
PM talked about different societies having different norms #PMIKonHBOMax pic.twitter.com/tOSgs1AuOc
— PTI USA Official (@PTIOfficialUSA) June 21, 2021
However, it turns out that HBO cut short Khan’s interview to project its narrative onto him. HBO also omitted Imran Khan’s reply when he is questioned about his notorious past calling him a “playboy”. This left little room for Khan to explain his words to the public.
https://twitter.com/areeba_chaudhry/status/1407054404663054337?s=20
Here is the link to the unedited version:
As soon as the unedited version surfaced on social media a few netizens rushed to Twitter to express their disappointment.
“We have rising sex crimes…this doesn’t mean we say what IK did 40 years ago is hypocrisy, that is lunacy. I have a responsibility as PM, when a sex crime happens, when a child is abused, he is traumatised for life. We have to do something about it”.
What Jonathan missed 🤷♀️. https://t.co/RdMkM6dmDP pic.twitter.com/V9vIZqDFaN
— ZarlashtF NA-251 🪘 (@ZarlashtFaisal) June 21, 2021
https://twitter.com/RizwanNajam/status/1407237093584220166?s=20
While it is clearly an embodiment of poorly executed journalism on HBO’s part, it still does not extend a leeway to Imran Khan for his irresponsible articulation.
It should be acknowledged that HBO handpicked Imran Khan’s answers which distorted the context, nevertheless, Khan should have been more responsible with his words to not come off as a rape apologist.
Read more: https://pakobserver.net/pakistan/
