|
MAKING THEIR VOICES HEARD: Members of Pakistan's largest religious party, Jamaat-e-Islami, shouting anti-Musharraf slogans in Peshawar yesterday in defiance of the emergency rule. The party says its leader and more than 500 of its people have been detained. -- PHOTO: AFP
|
|
|
ISLAMABAD - IN WHAT has now been dubbed 'General Pervez Musharraf's second coup', the Pakistani President has used Saturday's declaration of emergency rule to launch a wholesale round-up of his opponents.
Within 48 hours of imposing what is seen as de facto martial law, he has arrested more than 1,500 people, including political rivals, judges and lawyers.
An Interior Ministry official said up to 1,800 people have been detained nationwide.
Among those imprisoned or placed under house arrest are chief justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry; Mr Javed Hashmi, the acting president of the party of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif; cricket star-turned-politician Imran Khan; the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan's chairman Asma Jehangir; and Mr Hamid Gul, former chief of the main intelligence agency.
Pakistan's largest religious party, Jamaat-e-Islami, reported that more than 500 of its workers and supporters had been detained along with its leader since Sunday.
The Pakistan People's Party said at least 67 workers and supporters of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto had been arrested.
Lawyers - who were the driving force behind protests earlier this year when Gen Musharraf tried unsuccessfully to fire independent-minded chief justice Chaudhry - were beaten up and arrested when they attempted to stage rallies in major cities yesterday.
Mr Chaudhry yesterday declared Gen Musharraf's post-emergency set-up as 'illegal and unconstitutional'.
'Everything that is happening today is illegal, unconstitutional and against the orders of the Supreme Court,' he told local daily The News, in his first reported comments since the crisis.
The chief justice has been replaced by a Musharraf loyalist.
Mr Chaudhry told The News by telephone that all recent appointments made in the superior judiciary have 'no legal validity'.
Gen Musharraf, who first seized power in 1999, had justified the declaration of emergency on the grounds that Islamic militancy had become a grave threat.
But much of the page-long declaration focused on the Supreme Court, which it accused of working at 'cross purposes' with the executive and undermining its efforts to fight extremism.
Tellingly, Gen Musharraf chose to act just as the court was about to decide whether to validate his controversial Oct 6 presidential election victory. A close aide to Gen Musharraf said they expected the decision to go against the President.
And yesterday, Pakistani police held several judges - including Mr Chaudhry - incommunicado at their homes after they refused to swear allegiance when the President imposed emergency rule.
The deposed chief justice in the southern Sindh province, Mr Sabihuddin Ahmed, said: 'I was not allowed to go to the court. I am at home.'
He said he had heard that some judges who managed to reach the high court were prevented by police officers from entering the court premises.
A large number of police officers have also surrounded the residences of defiant judges in Islamabad, and officials said that their houses had been locked overnight to prevent them from going to the court.
Gen Musharraf issued a provisional constitutional order on Saturday night after imposing emergency rule, requiring the judges to take a new oath or risk dismissal.
Most of the judges of the Supreme Court and four high courts refused to take the oath. The Supreme Court has been at odds with Gen Musharraf since he tried to sack chief justice Chaudhry in March.
Meanwhile, even Gen Musharraf's close advisers are saying his attempt to hang onto power is likely to backfire disastrously.
With intense domestic opposition likely to explode onto the streets and international condemnation threatening to turn the President into an outcast, one of his closest advisers called it 'a very serious self-inflicted wound'.
Mr Mushahid Hussain, a top leader of the ruling party, added: 'I feel it will be difficult to really recover from this wound.'
ASSOCIATED PRESS, REUTERS, WASHINGTON POST
|
