“The government system, in my view, is in semi-paralysis,” Musharraf declared. “All government functionaries are being insulted by the courts. That is why they are unable to take any action.”
He continued: “Terrorism and extremism are at their peak. I suspect that Pakistan’s sovereignty is in danger unless timely action is taken. Extremists are roaming around freely in the country, and they are not scared of law enforcement agencies.
“Inaction at this moment is suicide for Pakistan, and I cannot allow this country to commit suicide.”
Specifically, the military ruler charged the judiciary with interfering with the struggle against terrorism by challenging the government’s right to detain people indefinitely without charges and interfering “with the executive function,” i.e., Musharraf’s exercise of unlimited dictatorial powers.
No doubt, in surveying the actions taken by the Pakistani regime, there are not a few in Washington who envision the Bush administration or its successor taking similar measures in the name of the “war on terrorism.”
Musharraf’s invocation of this war and, for that matter, the war itself are pretexts designed to justify the pursuit of definite interests.
In the case of the Pakistani regime, the martial law decree was imposed to block an imminent ruling by the Supreme Court that would have invalidated last October’s presidential elections, which were rigged to give the military strongman another five-year presidential term. Musharraf issued the decree as head of the armed forces rather than president, leading some to call it his “second coup.” His first was in 1999, when he led the military in the overthrow of then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
After the decree was announced, Pakistan’s chief justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry—whose firing earlier this year provoked mass protests that forced his reinstatement—joined with six other justices in ruling it illegal and unconstitutional. Musharraf responded by firing Chaudhry and placing him and the other justices under house arrest.
The martial law decree combined with the firing and imprisonment of the judges sparked a renewal of the mass demonstrations by lawyers that shook the country earlier last spring, when Musharraf first attempted to fire Chaudhry.
On Monday, over 2,000 lawyers gathered outside the High Court building in the eastern city of Lahore. When they attempted to march onto a main road, chanting “Go Musharraf, go,” riot police fired tear gas into the crowd and beat them with batons, leaving many injured and bloodied. Hundreds were grabbed by squads of plainclothes police and thrown into waiting police vans.
Violent confrontations also erupted in the western city of Peshawar, the southern city of Karachi and in other parts of the country Monday. In Islamabad, larger demonstrations have so far been blocked by the virtual militarization of the city, with the Supreme Court building and other government installations ringed with concertina wire and guarded by heavily armed army rangers. Nonetheless, a few hundred lawyers assembled at the district courts shouting “Go Musharraf, go!” and “Musharraf is a dog!” but were blocked by police from marching in the street.
“This police brutality against peaceful lawyers shows how the government of a dictator wants to silence those who are against dictatorship,” said Sarfraz Cheema, a senior lawyer at the demonstration. “We don’t accept the proclamation of emergency.”
“He has held the whole nation of 160 million people hostage, just with the backing of the gun and the Western powers,” said M.S. Moghul, another of the protesting lawyers.
Protests were also reported at a number of Pakistani universities, both against the martial law decree and against the arrest of faculty members.
An Interior Ministry spokesman acknowledged Monday that as many as 1,800 people have been detained nationwide in the martial law crackdown. Opposition parties and human rights groups, however, put the number at twice that. Those arrested have not been charged and their whereabouts are unknown to their families.
Meanwhile, the independent broadcast media remained shut down for a third day, with the government station, broadcasting Musharraf’s decree, the only one operating. According to media sources, the government has attempted to impose a “code of conduct” sharply restricting political coverage as a condition for allowing the stations to resume their broadcasts.
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