Anj — Lift emergency, restore democracy, demands citizens' group
Topic(s): Pakistan | Comments Off on Anj — Lift emergency, restore democracy, demands citizens' groupThanks to Beena in Pakistan for these communiques…
At around 5 pm all the TV news channels were taken off the air. This
meant ’emergency declared’ – soon confirmed. We were at the close of a
meeting in Karachi to discuss the Citizens Charter, and sent out a
press release (below) incorporating the info we had – Judges Colony in
Islamabad sealed; ALL TV news channels taken off air; judges asked to
take a new oath.
Since then, these updates have come in: Judges were asked to take a
new oath (eight had refused) under a PCO (provisional constitional
order); Supreme Court bench headed by the CJ set aside the PCO; Army
entered Supreme Court where Bar was in session & ‘escorted’ the CJ
out; CJ has been terminated. Aitzaz Ahsan arrested. Constitution
suspended. Mush is supposed to address the nation ‘some time this
evening’ according to PTV, the only news channel now working.
According to another report 18 out of 28 Sindh High Court judge have
been ‘sacked’.
Message from Farooq Sulehria of the Labour Party Pakistan: “Though the
regime is likely to use Taliban-occupation of certain districts as a
pretext it is most likely that emergency is imposed to pre-empt a
court ruling against Mushraaf’s re-election. Emergency means that all
basic democratic rights will be suspended while courts would have
their powers curtailed. Pakistan has been in grip of political crisis
and regime was facing growing mass resentment. This emergency is a
desperate attempt to cling to power.”
beena
PRESS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE PUBLICATION
Lift emergency, restore democracy, demands citizens’ group
KARACHI, Nov 3, 2007: Participants at a meeting of concerned citizens
held to discuss a citizens’ charter for democracy expressed outrage at
the imposition of emergency. They condemned it as an unjustified step
and and demanded that it be lifted with immediate effect.
The group opposed the extreme measures being taken in the name of
emergency, including the oath that judges have been asked to take, the
Judges’ Colony in Islamabad being sealed off and the television
channels being taken off air. The meeting, attended by various
concerned citizens from different sectors of society, termed the
imposition of emergency as part of the intimidating tactics being used
to pressurise the judiciary in light of the forthcoming judgement on
the presidential elections.
The group has resolved to join the lawyers and other citizens
demanding the lifting of emergency, and holding of free and fair
elections under an interim government. The meeting included members of
Pur Aman Karachi (Uzma Noorani of Human Rights Commission of Pakistan,
Anis Haroon of Aurat Foundation, and artist & curator Niilofur
Farrukh) besides several other citizens including businessman Nadeem
Khalid, consultant Naeem Sadiq, Asad Umar from the corporate sector,
political science professor Sahar Shafqat, human rights lawyer Abira
Ashfaq, educationist Tahseen Hussain, student Haya Hussain, blogger
Awab Alvi, and journalists, Shahid Husain and Beena Sarwar.
Next Update
There is widespread outrage at the emergency, and a feeling of deja vu
for those of us who remember the Zia years. ‘He’s done this to
keep himself in power’ is the general feeling (no pun intended),
expressed by our chowkidar, a young fellow who had not been able to
hear the news because all the radio channels were also blocked,
including BBC.
There are likely to be several demonstrations all over the country
(some people in Karachi are meeting at 3 pm), but of course the real
numbers will only come out if BB gives a call. And Nawaz Sharif
apparently has said he will support her in the fight against the
emergency, so the PML-N should come out too.
Despite rumours that she was heading to Pakistan to take over as
caretaker Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto has taken a strong stand
against the emergency rule. She made a statement while still in Dubai
and flew back this evening, landing at Karachi airport around 9 pm.
There were reports that she was being pressurised to go back which
she refused, challenging them to arrest her. She reached Bilawal
House around 12.10 pm – with her own security, not police escort.
Interestingly, this was just about the time that Musharraf made his
address to the nation (an hour later than scheduled) – wearing a
sherwani this time rather than a suit & tie. Brought back memories of
Zia’s sacking of Junejo (three months later Zia was gone). This time
the PM remains in office, but the CJ has been sacked.
Mush made no mention of elections – but implied that they would not
be held when he said that the governors, Chief Ministers and
assemblies would continue to function. I loved his comment about
allowing the media to function, and all the channels that have been
allowed to go on air. In 1999 when he took over, he said, ‘there was
only PTV’. Well today too, there was only PTV, because the cable
operators had been directed to take all the news channels (including
CNN & BBC) off the air. Apparently this directive did not work in
Lyari (strong PPP constituency in Karachi). Details of his speech on
geo.tv & dawn.com
We went to see what was happening at Bilawal House about 1 am. There
was hardly any police around, and just a few dozen men milling around
outside Bilawal house. She was addressing a press conference inside
with about 60 journalists. According to a news report (Jang) she said
the emergency was basically martial law & the people are fully aware
and will resist it; it had been imposed as a preemptive measure
against the expected court judgement (against Musharraf as
president). She added that this will increase extremism & that
arresting the judges will weaken the legal system. She demanded an
immediate lifting of the emergency and the restoration of the
Constitution.
On Friday I filed a story for IPS about ‘judicial activism’ and its
impact on Pakistan’s political situation – but they couldn’t carry it
today and I had to update it today – http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?
idnews=39917 (text below).
On the IPS website I came across this excellent report about the
judiciary being freed from the executive in Bangladesh this past
Thursday – http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39901
We could also learn a few lessons from the people’s movement in
Nepal…
beena
POLITICS-PAKISTAN: ‘Judicial Activism’ Triggered Emergency
Analysis by Beena Sarwar
KARACHI, Nov 3 (IPS) – By taking a stand on crucial constitutional
issues, implicit in cases before it, the Pakistan Supreme Court may
have raised the political temperature to a point where, in order to
remain in power, President Gen. Pervez Musharraf felt compelled to
declare emergency on Saturday.
Rumours of an emergency had been persisting for several days, but on
Saturday evening private television news channels were taken off the
air and the state-run Pakistan Television (PTV) announced: `’The
Chief of the Army Staff (Musharraf) has proclaimed state of emergency
and issued provisional constitutional order (PCO).”
According to various sources, judges of the higher judiciary were
asked to take a new oath under the provisional constitutional order
(PCO) — which a bench of the Supreme Court bench rejected.
The court ruled that no judge and chief justice of the Supreme Court
and High Courts could take oath under the PCO and that no civil and
military officials could abide by any order of a government that went
against the constitution or the law. The prime minister and the
president were made parties in the ruling.
Soon afterwards, troops entered the Supreme Court building
and ‘escorted’ Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry out, his
services `terminated’. The president of the Pakistan Supreme Court
Bar Association (SCBA) Aitzaz Ahsan and other members of the
influential lawyers’ body were also arrested.
The PCO, read out on PTV, squarely blamed the judiciary for the
imposition of emergency rule and accused it of interfering with the
fight against Islamist militancy. “Some members of the judiciary are
working at cross purposes with the executive and legislature in the
fight against terrorism and extremism, thereby weakening the
government and the nation’s resolve and diluting the efficacy of its
action to control this menace,” the order said.
But this only reinforced the general impression that the emergency
had been declared in order to keep Musharraf in power. Talking to
television channels on a mobile phone, from the restroom of the
police station where he was detained, Ahsan termed the emergency and
the suspension of the Constitution `illegal’.
The Supreme Court is seized of a slew of petitions likely to have far-
reaching implications on Pakistani politics — including the validity
of Musharraf holding the dual offices of president and army chief.
Musharraf’s term as president expires on Nov. 15.
After Musharraf pledged to quit the army, before starting a new
presidential term, the court in a short order dismissed these
petitions as “not maintainable” and allowed the presidential
elections to be held on Oct 6 as scheduled — although the results
could not be announced until the final verdict. This in effect
allowed Musharraf to contest the presidential elections while
remaining army chief.
The final verdict has been expected for some time, but the hearings
kept getting delayed. “This is not a matter that should take so many
days,” said eminent jurist and former High Court judge Fakhruddin G.
Ebrahim, talking to IPS on Friday.
The delay has been attributed to the great pressure the judges were
obviously under. Musharraf’s refusal to say whether he would accept a
negative verdict from the court also fuelled rumours of emergency
rule or martial law. “Musharraf is behaving like a bad loser as the
decision was not going to be in his favour,” said Ahsan.
Until about a year ago, `judicial activism’ in Pakistan was largely
limited to taking notice of human rights cases involving, for
example, violence against women. But in terms of politics, this
activism traditionally validated undemocratic actions rather than
striking them down, commented Anwar Syed, professor emeritus of
political science at the University of Massachusetts, United States.
The military has staged several coups, seized the government,
abrogated the Constitution or put it in abeyance (1958, 1977 and
1999). In addition, various presidents dismissed the National
Assembly (1988, 1990, 1993, and 1996). The judiciary validated these
situations by invoking the `doctrine of necessity’, which was not a
part of the law, but “a rationale for evading or defeating the law.
Resort to it is, therefore, clearly an exercise in judicial
activism,” commented Syed.
Democracy advocates argue that this doctrine should be buried and the
judiciary under Chaudhry appeared inclined to agree.
The Supreme Court has been playing an increasingly pro-active role
over the last year, starting with the cases of enforced
disappearances that have been rising alarmingly since Pakistan became
a partner in the U.S.-led `war on terror’. The media has been
supportive to this process.
In July 2006, Pakistani journalists working for the BBC Urdu service
initiated a ground-breaking special debate on
Pakistan’s `disappeared’. Held in the capital Islamabad, the debate
included several government officials and families of the
disappeared.
“In effect, this broke the silence around the issue,” said Mazhar
Zaidi, a producer with the BBC in London who was involved in
organising the event. “Once a powerful international media
organisation takes notice of something, local journalists feel safer
taking it on.” The local media had held back due to fear of the
powerful intelligence agencies that were behind most of these
disappearances.
The greater openness generated public awareness and facilitated
collective action by the families. When two of the affected families
filed a petition in Aug. 2006, seeking information on 41 missing
persons, the Supreme Court took the matter seriously. Many individual
petitions were also filed. The independent Human Rights Commission of
Pakistan in February 2007 filed a joint petition seeking information
on 150 missing persons.
The court’s pro-active stance shook up the intelligence agencies and
led to the production of several missing persons in court.
“The Chief Justice took an excellent stand in the missing persons
case,” said lawyer Fakhruddin G. Ebrahim. “Every time a person was
found, the court said this is not good enough. When was this person
picked up and why? They were pushing for accountability.”
Political analysts speculate that this contributed to Musharraf’s
decision to `suspend’ Choudhry in March this year.
But this, in turn, catalysed a four-month-long `lawyers’ movement’
that came to symbolise Pakistan’s long struggle between
constitutionality and military rule. The stand-off ended in July when
a full bench of the Supreme Court reinstated Choudhry. The court then
returned to the cases of the disappeared with renewed zeal.
Another case that analysts saw as forcing Musharraf’s hand relates to
exiled, twice-elected, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif who has
filed a petition on the question of his right to return and
participate in politics.
The Supreme Court upheld his plea on Aug. 23. When the government
bundled the Pakistan Muslim League party leader back to Saudi Arabia
within hours of his landing in Islamabad on Sep. 10, his lawyers
promptly filed a contempt case against a long list of respondents for
violating the court verdict.
The hearings soon falsified the government’s claims that Sharif had
left `voluntarily’, bound by his `agreement’ with the Musharraf
government soon after the military coup of 1999. As the truth began
to unravel, Sharif’s unceremonious departure emerged as part of a
long-standing plan initiated at the highest level.
The apex court was also reviewing a petition regarding the National
Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) that President Gen. Musharraf
promulgated on Oct. 5 a day before the presidential elections. The
NRO cleared the way for another former twice-elected prime minister,
Benazir Bhutto, to return to Pakistan without being arrested for the
corruption charges she faced after being ousted from power in 1996.
Bhutto has been criticized for this `deal’, in exchange for which her
Pakistan People’s Party legitimised Musharraf’s presidential
candidacy by abstaining from the vote. The opposition boycotted the
proceedings in protest at Musharraf’s nomination as President while
still army chief.
Another case relating to fundamental rights was that of police
brutality on lawyers and journalists outside the office of the
Election Commission in Islamabad when the presidential nomination
papers were being filed on Sep. 29. The main TV channels broadcast
the beatings in graphic detail. The court’s suo moto notice of the
incident resulted in the suspension of the top police officers
involved.
(END/2007)
Next Update
Current updates:
1. This morning, there was massive police deployment outside Lahore
High Court — for the first time also inside, while the Lahore High
Court Bar meeting was under way.
The lawyers began going on Mall Road outside the LHC & police first
shelled inside the LHC gate, then viciously beat those in the front of
the procession. There are around 4000 police compared to about some
400 lawyers.
In Karachi, police entered the Sindh High Court and arrested the
lawyers trying to escort the judges in – including Chief Justice
Sabihuddin and others. The detained lawyers have been kept in the
Artillery Maidan Thana, and police were bringing more in… Arrested
lawyers include Zahid F. Ebrahim, Haider Waheed, Taha Alizai, & CJ
Sabih’s son.
Currently there are 40-60 lawyers in the lockup. Police started taking
away their cell phones and some managed to hand them to friends outside.
The BBC says that the police beat up lawyers who were outside the High
Court – http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7078364.stm
Lawyers have called a protest at the Karachi Press Club this evening.
Meanwhile, the detained activists in Lahore were transferred to
sub-jails late last night (3.30 am) and placed under `house arrest’ –
women in one house, and men in two others. They may be released today.
2. Nov 4, 2007, from Asma Jahangir:
Dear Friends,
The situation in the country is uncertain. There is a strong
crackdown on the press and lawyers. Majority of the judges of the
Supreme Court and four High Courts have not taken oath. The Chief
Justice is under house arrest (unofficially). The President of the
Supreme Court Bar (Aitzaz Ahsan) and 2 former presidents, Mr. Muneer
Malik and Tariq Mahmood have been imprisoned for one month under the
Preventive Detention laws. The President of the Lahore High Court Mr.
Ahsan Bhoon and former bar leader Mr. Ali Ahmed Kurd have also been
arrested. The police is looking or 6 other lawyers, including
President of Peshawar and Karachi bar. The President of Lahore bar is
also in hiding.
There are other scores political leaders who have also been arrested.
Yesterday I was house arrested for 90 days. I am sending my detention
order.
Ironically the President (who has lost his marbles) said that he 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.
Lawyers and civil society will challenge the government and the scene
is likely to get uglier. We want friends of Pakistan to urge the US
administration to stop all support of the instable dictator, as his
lust for power is bringing the country close to a worse form of civil
strife. It is not time for the international community to insist on
preventive measures, otherwise cleaning up the mess may take decades.
There are already several hundred IDPs and the space for civil
society has hopelessly shrunk.
We believe that Musharaf has to be taken out of the equation and a
government of national reconciliation put in place. It must be backed
by the military. Short of this there are no realistic solutions,
although there are no guarantees that this may work.
Asma Jahangir
3. From Mazhar Abbas, Secretary General, Pakistan Federal Union of
Journalists (PFUJ)
JOURNALISTS DETAINED, BEATEN, PREVENTED FROM COVERAGE
ISLAMABAD, Nov 5: In worst kind of repression against media, police
and paramilitary forces have detained bureau chief of ARY, Quetta,
and cameraman, arrested two brothers of ARY senior correspondent in
Sukkar and threatened scores of journalists, cameramen during
coverage.
Reporters and cameramen were also beaten by the police while covering
lawyers protest in Rawalpindi and also tried to snatch their cameras.
According to reports collected by PFUJ till 11 a.m. on Monday, ARY
office in Sukkur was raided, women staff were humiliated following
arrest of two brothers of its senior correspondent, Lala Asad Pathan
on Sunday night. They left the office after asking the staff to
ensure that Asad should surrender.
On Monday, ARY bureau chief in Quetta, Sattar Kakar and his cameraman
were detained by paramilitary while taking films of the protest.
Scores of journalists including cameramen were threatened in the
field by police and paramilitary while performing their professional
duties and covering the lawyers protest in different parts of the
country. They were not allowed to work freely and are facing
threats..
All tv news channels including foreign news channels remained off air
on the third day. Cable operators were told to air only Music,
movies, sports, cartoon network….anything other than news.
“It’s the worst kind of repression against media in Pakistan in 30
years.People have been deprived from thei basic right to know,” PFUJ
said in a statement.
PFUJ have appealed to reporters and cameramen to be careful and
cautious during their coverage as their lives and safety are under
threat.
4. Human Rights Watch demands end to Emergency Rule and Restoration
of Constitution, deplores crackdown on Civil Society in the name of
move Against `Militants’ –
http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/11/04/pakist17241.htm
5. Footage of protests in Islamabad yesterday, where dozens of men
and women were arrested – http://www.reuters.com/news/video?
videoId=70151&newsChannel=newsOne – with this news update:
Nov. 4 – Elections in Pakistan could be severely delayed after the
declaration of emergency rule in the country.
Up to 500 people have been arrested and detained as military ruler
President Pervez Musharraf tries to stifle outcry over the emergency
measures. Musharraf claims he implemented the measures because the
country is in a crisis caused my militant violence and a hostile
judiciary. The United States says it will review financial aid to
Pakistan following the crackdown.
6. PAKISTAN- INDIA PEOPLES’ FORUM FOR PEACE & DEMOCRACY (Maharashtra)
November 4, 2007
PRESS STATEMENT
Pakistan-India Peoples’ Forum for Peace and Democracy (PIPFPD)
strongly condemns the imposition of Emergency in Pakistan. This
Emergency is illegal and unconstitutional. The Emergency means
suspension of all fundamental rights. The regime of Pervez Musharraf
today arrested Dr. Mubashir Hasan and I A Rehman, both founding
members of PIPFPD, amongst others. The regime has also arrested Asma
Jahangir, internationally acclaimed human rights activist, in and
sealed office of Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), Lahore.
Musharraf has usurped the independence of judiciary by sending troops
in the Supreme Court of Pakistan and detaining Iftikhar Chooudhary,
Chief Justice of Pakistan and removing other judges who refused to
take oath under Provincial Constitutional Order (PCO). Emergency is
imposed as judiciary, of late, became pro-people and embarrased
Musharraf many times. The Supreme Court was to deliver a judgement on
petitions challenging the election of Musharraf as President of
Pakistan.
Emergency also means encroachment on freedom of expression and
speech. It is no surprising that few vocal journalists, too, are
arrested.
We express our solidarity with the struggling, pro-democracy people
of Pakistan and express confidence that sooner than later the
citizens of Pakistan will achieve true democracy.
Thanks,
(Jatin Desai)
Hon. Secretary
PIPFPD (Maharashtra)