Hard On Civil Society,
Soft On ExtremistsBy Beena Sarwar
06 November, 2007
Inter Press ServiceKARACHI, Nov 5 (IPS) - Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf appears to be following a strategy of being hard on lawyers and the judiciary and soft on Islamist extremists -- the two groups he blamed for imposing emergency rule in the country on Saturday.
On Monday, police beat up lawyers and arrested scores of them gathered outside the High Court of Karachi. Another 200 lawyers were arrested at the High Court in the eastern city of Lahore. In both cities, police entered the High Court buildings to arrest lawyers. The lawyers in Lahore were also at the receiving end of a heavy baton charge.
In Islamabad, the chief justice of the Supreme Court, Iftikhar Chaudhry, as well as several senior judges who were detained on Saturday for refusing to sign the Provisional Constitution Order (PCO) a step normally taken prior to imposing martial law, were being held at their homes.
Those arrested include the president of the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) Aitzaz Ahsan. He and two former SCBA presidents, Munir A. Malik and Tariq Mahmood, have been ordered imprisoned for one month each under the preventive detention laws.
The president of the Lahore High Court bar association, Ahsan Bhoon, and former bar leader Ali Ahmed Kurd are also under arrest. Other presidents of various bar associations and activists like the secretary-general of the Labour Party Pakistan, Farooq Tariq, are in hiding.
Civil rights activists question Musharraf's claim that he imposed a state of emergency because of the crisis caused by militancy and a hostile judiciary. The text of the Provisional Constitution Order (PCO) declaring the emergency focuses more on "judicial activism" that Musharraf said had negatively impacted the "morale" of the administration and the law enforcement agencies.
In a speech late Saturday night, Musharraf announced that the national and provincial assemblies would continue to function, and the provincial governors and chief ministers would continue to hold office. The only change appears to be with the judiciary.
"If the Constitution is in abeyance, the parliament should also be suspended," former Supreme Court judge Wajihuddin Ahmad, the lawyers' candidate who stood against Musharraf in the recent presidential elections, told IPS.
The government is swearing in new judges to fill the vacuum left by the dismissed judges. However, an unprecedented number of judges of the Supreme Court and four High Courts have not taken oath under the PCO.
"There will be a crisis," said Ahmad, talking to IPS at his Karachi residence on Sunday. "Where will they get judges to fill all these positions?"
The former judge, who was among the six judges to refuse to take oath under the PCO imposed by Musharraf, after he initially took over power in 1999, predicted that there will be "a lot of defiance particularly among the younger lawyers. They are unstoppable."
The Musharraf government, however, is doing its best to stop them. About 200 lawyers are believed to have been arrested in Lahore on Monday, and another hundred or so in Karachi.
Leading lawyer, U.N. special rapporteur, and chairperson of the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan Asma Jahangir, under house arrest at her Lahore residence since Saturday, termed it ironic that the president, who she said "has lost his marbles", had to clamp down on the press and the judiciary to curb terrorism.
"Those he has arrested are progressive, secular-minded people while the terrorists are offered negotiations and ceasefires," she added.
The government on Sunday freed 25 militants in exchange for the release of 213 army personnel held hostage by Taliban in South Waziristan on Pakistan's northwest border for more than two months.
Some 70 activists, arrested in a police raid on HRCP's Lahore office on Sunday where a meeting was being held to discuss the emergency, were held in a police lockup as their families, who were not allowed to meet them, held vigil outside.
The arrests were made under the MPO 1960 (maintenance of public order act) although the meeting was being held indoors at a private venue and posed no threat to public order. Police had no written orders and claimed the right to detain those arrested for 30 days without charge and without bail.
At 3.30 am, they were sent to nearby houses that had been declared as sub-jails before being transported to the Kot Lakhpat jail on Monday morning. Prominent journalist and director of the HRCP, I.A. Rehman, and the body's secretary general, Iqbal Haider, were also transported to the prison. Later on Monday, some of those arrested were again transferred to the sub-jails.
In a statement released from her residence on Sunday, Jahangir asked friends of Pakistan "to urge the U.S. administration to stop all support for the instable dictator, as his lust for power is bringing the country close to a worse form of civil strife. It is now time for the international community to insist on preventive measures, otherwise cleaning up the mess may take decades. There are already several hundred disappeared persons and the space for civil society has hopelessly shrunk."
''Musharraf,'' Jahangir said, "must be taken out of the equation and a government of national reconciliation put in place, backed by the military. Short of this there are no realistic solutions, although there are no guarantees that this may work." The international community, including the United States, has condemned the state of emergency. Washington has said it will review financial aid to Pakistan and asked Pakistan to release all those detained after the promulgation of emergency.
The Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists on Monday issued a strongly worded statement against what it called the "worst kind of repression against media since 1978". According to the journalist union, some 16 journalists have been detained and police have also raided printing presses and bureau offices. In addition, police threatened scores of journalists and cameramen during coverage.
The electronic media news blackout within the country has continued for the third day, although newspapers are publishing normally. Cable operators were allowed to broadcast only music, movies, sports, and cartoon programmes -- "Anything other than news," said PFUJ secretary general Mazhar Abbas.
Messages of solidarity for the democratic struggle and against the emergency are pouring in to various rights organisations from around the world. Media organisations received calls from cities all around Pakistan, including Karachi, where the stock market has fallen 4.7 percent due to the prevailing political uncertainty.
The uncertainty has been fuelled by strong rumours about a "counter-coup". President Musharraf termed the rumours "a joke of the highest order".
Although Musharraf had indicated that the present assemblies will be extended, his political partners like the attorney general, Malik Qayyum, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and Punjab Chief Minister Pervaiz Elahi have said in various statements that the assemblies will be dissolved on Nov. 15 as scheduled and that elections will be held on time.
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