Soomro sworn In, Benazir sought a "people's revolution"
Palash Biswas
Contact: Palash C Biswas, C/O Mrs Arati Roy, Gosto Kanan, Sodepur, Kolkata- 700110, India. Phone: 91-033-25659551
Email: alashbiswaskl@gmail.com">palashbiswaskl@gmail.com
The United States had hoped army chief Musharraf and Bhutto would share power after the election but Bhutto, infuriated by the crackdown, has ruled that out.The United States has given Pakistan an estimated $10 billion of financial support since 2001, the bulk of it for the military.In declaring the emergency, Musharraf suspended the constitution, fired judges seen as hostile, rounded up thousands of opponents and rights activists and curbed the media.The United States is worried the turmoil will distract attention from the fight against militants supporting the Taliban in Afghanistan.The army has stepped up efforts to clear militants from one such area, the Swat Valley in North West Frontier Province, where it says it has killed dozens of rebels in recent days.
"I can't see how I can team up with somebody who raises hopes and dashes them, who makes commitments and moves the goal posts. He talked to me about a roadmap to democracy and imposed martial law," she said.She said opposition parties would meet on November 21 to discuss whether to boycott the election.
Asma Jahangir, head of Pakistan's independent human rights commission and a fierce critic of Musharraf's, was seen visiting Bhutto's Lahore residence on Friday, having been detained herself as soon as the emergency was imposed.In the capital, Musharraf swore in a caretaker prime minister who will be responsible for overseeing parliamentary elections due by January 9, after the National Assembly completed its five-year term on Thursday.The outgoing prime minister, Shaukat Aziz, was widely credited with transforming Pakistan from a country on the brink of bankruptcy to one of the fastest growing economies in the world over the past eight years. There are considerable doubts about his position in the next government.The uncertainties are weighing on financial markets. Stocks closed only marginally down on Friday, but the main index was near a two-month low, and has lost 5.5 percent since the emergency was imposed. It is still up 31 percent this year.
Pakistan freed opposition leader Benazir Bhutto from house arrest shortly before a top U.S. diplomat began a visit on Friday aimed at persuading President Pervez Musharraf to end emergency rule.U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte was due to meet General Musharraf on Saturday, and was expected to push him to roll back the emergency invoked two weeks ago, release thousands of detainees and hold elections.Most opposition leaders were in custody, along with lawyers, opposition and rights activists.Bhutto, who had been under house arrest in Lahore since Tuesday to stop her leading a rally against Musharraf, went on the offensive as soon as she was released.
Former Pakistan Premier Benazir Bhutto, released from house arrest, on Friday sought a "people's revolution" to overthrow President Pervez Musharraf's eight- year reign as she rejected the caretaker government sworn-in by him to steer the country towards the general election.
"This caretaker government is an extension of the (ruling) PML-Q and is not acceptable," Bhutto, who was freed under apparent US pressure, told reporters here. Her comments came after Musharraf's handpicked leader Mohammedmian Soomro was sworn-in as the caretaker Prime Minister by the General in the run-up to the general election due in early January. Parliament was dissolved at midnight on Thursday night after completing its five-year term. Calling for a "people's revolution" to oust the Musharraf regime, Bhutto, the leader of opposition Pakistan People's Party (PPP), pledged to continue with her party's protest march against emergency. After Bhutto was served with a seven-day detention order on Tuesday - which was however cut short, her party launched a "long march" from Lahore to the capital Islamabad to protest against the emergency rule. The government said that the rally was being taken out in violation of the emergency regulations.
Authorities prevented Bhutto, the two-time former Prime Minister who returned to Pakistan on October 18 after eight years in self-imposed exile, from leading anti-emergency protests by placing her under house arrest.
opposition leaders, including exiled former Premier Nawaz Sharif, in a bid to form a national unity government.
"I believe it is hard to build a coalition but I will take on the task.... I talked to Nawaz Sharif and told him that I am discussing with all leaders the formation of an interim government."
About the general elections, Bhutto said her party was still inclined to boycott the vote, which the opposition believed would not be held in a free and fair manner.
Bhutto also renewed her call for Musharraf to quit and said that the General's sidelining of moderate parties had led to the rise of extremism in the country.
"Do we want to deny this nation its true legitimate leadership and make way ... for extremist forces?" she asked.
"The West's interests lie in a democratic Pakistan," she said ahead of US Undersecretary of State John Negroponte's visit to Pakistan for talks with Musharraf.
Bhutto had earlier said that she was not in favour of fresh talks with Musharraf and urged the Bush Administration to facilitate an "exit strategy" for the General, fearing that the country would be taken over by al-Qaeda and Taliban if the General remained in power. PTI KIM AKJ KIM 11161810 DEL
Keyword BHUTTO-MUSHARRAF 2 LAST Reference Filename ptis4503 Source ID ptis Seq. No. 4503 Take No. Source PTIS Cat. Code PTIS-FGN Priority Words Time 18:06 Date 16 Nov '07w4ptis1
Letter of 12 Human Rights Groups to U.S. Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice:
SUSPEND the U.S. MILITARY AID to the MUSHARRAF ARMY TYRANNY
By SYED ADEEB
(AdeebPress. com) - America's 12 human rights organizations have
strongly urged U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in their
recent joint letter to suspend all U.S. security assistance and
military aid to Pakistan's repressive government of outlaws, because
in November 2007, General Pervez Musharraf, a corrupt terrorist
tyrant of the Pakistan Army, once again committed many barbarous
crimes against millions of Pakistani citizens, including the capital
crime of high treason which is punishable with death or imprisonment
for life under Article 6 of the Constitution and the High Treason
(Punishment) Act. Devil Musharraf illegally subverted and abrogated
the Constitution, and unlawfully imposed illegal military Martial Law
of rogue Army generals, unlawful Emergency Rule, anti-Constitution
PCO, evil PCO judges/justices, barbaric state terrorism and
unconstitutional 'laws' on over 165 million enslaved citizens of
Pakistan. ...
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
THE REAL MUSHARRAF by Asma Jahangir Washington Post, November 9, 2007; Page A21 LAHORE, Pakistan -- It was close to midnight last Saturday when Gen. Pervez Musharraf finally appeared on state-run television. That's when police vans surrounded my house. I was warned not to leave, and hours later I learned I would be detained for 90 days. At least I have the luxury of staying at home, though I cannot see anyone. But I can only watch, helpless, as this horror unfolds. Police watch as lawyers demonstrate against President Pervez Musharraf in Islamabad yesterday. (By Wally Santana -- Asssociated Press) The Musharraf government has declared martial law to settle scores with lawyers and judges. Hundreds of innocent Pakistanis have been rounded up. Human rights activists, including women and senior citizens, have been beaten by police. Judges have been arrested and lawyers battered in their offices and the streets. These citizens
are our true assets: young, progressive and full of spirit. Many of them were trained to uphold the rule of law. They are being brutalized for seeking justice. Musharraf justified his draconian measures by saying he needed to be able to use all his might to fight the terrorists infecting our country. Yet the day after he declared an emergency, the Dawn newspaper reported that scores of terrorists were released by the government. While tyranny was being unleashed on peaceful citizens, the notorious militant Fazalullah (also known as Maulana Radio) had seized the beautiful town of Madyan, according to the Daily Times, and hoisted his "Islamic" flag over buildings while the security forces surrendered. Musharraf has implied that militancy increased in Pakistan because of judicial interference in governance. But until this past March, the judiciary had yielded to all executive demands. Five years ago, the general dismissed the
then-chief justice and his colleagues, charging that they were obstructing his process of democratization. What is democratic about a judiciary that's not independent? In recent days police have raided the home of the president of the Supreme Court Bar Association -- his wife has gone into hiding -- and the law chambers of two former presidents of the bar. Their clerks have been harassed. Military intelligence officers are interrogating leading attorneys. Meanwhile, unknown lawyers are being elevated to the bench. Since Saturday, police officers have barged into my house twice after receiving (false) warnings that I had escaped. On seeing me, they sheepishly admitted they were misled. ad_icon I have tried to make them understand the difference between people such as myself and terrorists. "If I did run away, how far would I go?" I asked them. "In any event, I am not likely to blow myself up around the corner." One police
officer said that he agreed but that his job was at greater risk if I got away than if a terrorist escaped the law. Terrorists, he pointed out, outnumber rights activists in our country. The officer argued that lawyers and judges hamper law enforcement. "How can we bring law and order if we cannot torture criminals? We must be given a free hand to deal with terrorists, and the chief justice has no business to ask us to produce them in courts. We are itching to lay our hands on all those judges who humiliated us for carrying out our duties," he told me. When I asked how he knew who the terrorists were, he insisted that the intelligence was infallible. Yet he didn't know I hadn't escaped from my house. The international community is alarmed at Musharraf's actions, but Pakistanis expected this. The Bush administration had built up the general as moderate and benign, but the true face of this regime has been exposed. A balanced
picture of Pakistan had begun to emerge in recent weeks. Thousands turned out to greet Benazir Bhutto upon her return last month; Pakistanis were progressive-minded enough to elect a female political leader years ago. Hundreds of progressive-minded lawyers have rallied for democratic values. I welcome Bhutto's call for the Pakistan People's Party to join the demonstrations. But Pakistan is threatened by Islamist militants, and our civil society suffers the worst of this creeping Talibanization. Woefully, the Musharraf regime is neither inclined to reverse this trend nor capable of doing so. No one has exact solutions, but there is virtual unanimity that Pakistan's political leadership must take charge and that the military must cooperate with an elected civilian government. Musharraf's promises to hold elections by Feb. 15 or to resign from the army are a red herring. He has pledged before to give up his uniform and failed to
follow through. Any election held under these circumstances will not be free and will only put the crisis on hold. Furthermore, militarization will kill the spirit of the progressive forces while boosting the terrorists' morale. A transition to democracy is crucial, but unless freedom of the press and the judiciary's independence are restored, any changes will remain toothless. It will be difficult to put Pakistan on the path to democracy, but we must begin now, before it is too late. Asma Jahangir, a Pakistani lawyer under house arrest in Lahore, chairs the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. She is a member of the international board of the Open Society Institute. o o o (i) RULE OF FORCE VS. RULE OF LAW IN PAKISTAN by Zia Mian and A.H. Nayyar | November 8, 2007 Foreign Policy In Focus www.fpif.org In a desperate bid to stay in power, General Pervez Musharraf has staged a coup against the rule of law in Pakistan.
His declaration of martial law, suspension of the constitution and basic rights was aimed at overthrowing Pakistan's Supreme Court, which was expected to rule next week that Musharraf could not continue as both president and chief of the army. Faced with choice of being president and being bound by the constitution or chief of the army and ruling by diktat, Musharraf chose khaki and force. His coup announcement is titled "Proclamation of Emergency declared by Chief of the Army Staff General Pervez Musharraf" and ends "I hereby order and proclaim that the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan shall remain in abeyance." Musharraf's proclamation is a litany of complaints about the courts. The Supreme Court was the only branch of government Musharraf and the army did not control. In the eight years since his October 1999 seizure of power, Musharraf has rigged parliamentary elections to give himself a majority, hand-picked
his prime minister, and replaced many senior generals. His control, and through him that of the army leadership, over government and the state was nearly complete. But none of this was enough to give him either the unchecked power or the legitimacy that he wanted. Supreme Court Musharraf complained in particular that Pakistan's courts, and especially the Supreme Court, were subverting the administration. His proclamation claims that the Court's "constant interference in executive functions, including but not limited to the control of terrorist activity, economic policy, price controls, downsizing of corporations and urban planning, has weakened the writ of the government." It laments "the humiliating treatment meted to government officials by some members of the judiciary on a routine basis during court proceedings." A particular concern was the Supreme Court taking up the cases of the hundreds of people picked up in recent
years by law enforcement agencies without warrants and held in custody, without charge or trial. The demands for due process and habeas corpus proved fruitless as officials simply lied to the courts about the people they were holding. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan was finally able to convince the Supreme Court to act. The Court began to summon senior officials and demanded the government produce the detained people in court. It threatened senior law enforcement officials with contempt of court and jail if they did not comply and was considering calling the chiefs of the armed forces to answer to the court. The system cracked and the disappeared started appearing. Iftikhar Chaudhry, the chief justice of Pakistan's Supreme Court, emerged as a key figure in confronting the arbitrary exercise of power by the government. General Musharraf responded earlier this year by firing him, triggering a national movement led by
lawyers for the justice's restoration. It attracted a lot of public support, reflecting the widespread disenchantment with the eight years of Musharraf's rule. Across the country, large crowds lined the roads and assembled to see and hear the chief justice. The other judges of the Supreme Court declared that the chief justice must be reinstated and Musharraf had to back down. The Court has returned to the cases of illegal detention. It also sentenced seven senior officials to suspended jail terms for manhandling the chief justice during the campaign for his reinstatement. Islamic Militancy General Musharraf has also claimed that the courts are hampering his efforts to stem the Islamic militancy in the tribal areas, the creeping talibanization of Pakistan's northwestern province, and the suicide bombing that have erupted across major cities over the past few years. But the Courts have only insisted on the rule of law. Musharraf's
failure to effectively counter the militancy springs from more other causes. The most important problem has been the military regime itself and its policies towards the Islamic political parties and militants. In need of some kind of political cover after seizing power in 1999, Musharraf and his generals cobbled together an alliance of opportunistic politicians, defectors from other parties and the Islamist political parties. This included the most radical and violent militant groups, which the army, led by Musharraf, had organized and used in the war against India in the Kargil region of Kashmir in the spring of 1999. This military-mullah alliance in Pakistan stretches back over 30 years, and was central in the U.S.-backed jihad against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan of the 1980s and the Kashmir insurgency of the 1990s. When not offering direct support, the Musharraf regime has preferred neglect and appeasement of Islamist
political parties and militants. Islamic laws are allowed to stay on the books. Militant groups are grudgingly banned in public and privately allowed to operate. Whether is in the tribal areas of Waziristan or the militant take-over of the Red Mosque in the heart of Islamabad, Musharraf and his generals preferred to ignore it, and then make concessions to the militants in the vain hope that the problem would go away. Second Coup The government has responded to the militancy only when domestic and international demands do something became overwhelming. But instead of a legal, politically measured, and thought-out response that is part of a long-term policy to counter the militancy, Musharraf and his generals have responded time and again with a spasm. They unleash a dramatic show of force including artillery, helicopter gun ships and air strikes, which inevitably result in large numbers of civilian deaths and injuries, inflame
public opinion, and stoke the militancy. At the heart of Musharraf's second coup, and what has determined its timing and character, is not an activist court, illegal detentions or the militancy. The Court had begun to hear challenges to Musharraf's role as both chief of army Staff and president of the republic. Pakistan's constitution explicitly forbids holding both positions. A showdown was imminent. It has been claimed that a Supreme Court judge told the government that the court was set to rule against Musharraf. Musharraf ended this threat by removing the chief justice and most of the rest of the Supreme Court. Before they were bundled out of the Supreme Court building, seven of the justices, including the chief justice, issued an order declaring Musharraf's proclamation of emergency to be unconstitutional and called on government officials and the armed forces to refuse to obey it. In a message to the country's lawyers, the
chief justice called for opposition. The target of the coup is also obvious from the list of those who have been the first to be detained in the police raids: leaders of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, prominent lawyers, and pro-democracy activists. The goal is clearly to prevent a movement for democracy and rule of law that could confront General Musharraf and the larger structure of army rule in Pakistan. Sharif and Bhutto Protests have started across the country, led by lawyers and civil society groups. They have been met with tear gas and brute force. Thousands are reported to have been arrested. It is likely to be a determined campaign, building on the experience of the mobilization earlier this year. But Pakistan's civil society, while heroic, is fragile. It is poorly equipped for a long and difficult struggle against a military regime. Central to any prospect of success will be Pakistan's major political parties,
Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan Peoples Party and Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League. But both the Peoples Party and the Muslim League are led from the top-down. They are populist vehicles for their leaders, both of whom are former prime ministers, rather than well-rooted democratic political parties with resilient local structures. Further, the leaders of both parties are deeply compromised. With U.S. and British support, Bhutto recently made a deal with General Musharraf to drop all corruption charges against her and enable her return from exile to join a Musharraf-led government. She has summoned her party activists to the barricades, but she may be willing to negotiate terms with the General on power sharing. Sharif was overthrown by Musharraf in his 1999 coup and agreed to go into exile in Saudi Arabia. His party will willingly join the fray but many in his party abandoned ship to join the rag-tag group of politicians assembled
by General Musharraf as a fig leaf for his rule. Sharif also tried to return from exile but was bundled into a plane and sent back, despite a clear Supreme Court ruling that Sharif had the right to return to Pakistan. There were no major protests. With the government at odds with the people, the police being tasked to crush pro-democracy activists, and chaos in the streets, the Islamic militants may try and take advantage of the unrest. They have already spread their influence far beyond the tribal and border areas and now control three major towns in the Swat valley, a few hours drive from Islamabad. Government forces simply surrendered and handed over their weapons. Pakistani flags have been replaced by jihadi banners on public buildings. Across the country, there have been attacks on soldiers and police. The bombing that killed over 100 people in a Karachi rally welcoming Bhutto may be a sign of things to come. Where's
Washington? Washington was alerted to the coup in advance. Admiral William Fallon, the head of U.S. forces in the Middle East met General Musharraf in Islamabad the day before the coup and is reported to have warned Musharraf about declaring an emergency. According to The New York Times, administration officials said "General Musharraf had been offering private assurances that any emergency declaration would be short-lived." The Bush administration's response has been predictable thus far. General Musharraf's aides told the Times that in the crucial first few days after the coup there had been no phone calls from President George W. Bush or other leading U.S. officials demanding an immediate end to the martial law. The newspaper quotes Pakistan's minister of state for information as saying the United States "would rather have a stable Pakistan - albeit with some restrictive norms - than have more democracy." In short, Islamabad
expected, rightly it turns out, that Washington would wring its hands, offer platitudes about restoring democracy, perhaps a token slap on the wrist, and keep on supporting General Musharraf. When President Bush did call, he told General Musharraf that "you ought to have elections soon." Washington has invested heavily in General Musharraf and will not want to write this off. Since September 11, 2001, the United States has given enormous political and diplomatic support and over $10 billion to Pakistan to buy General Musharraf's support for its "war on terror." It is a doomed policy. The United States has supported all of Pakistan military dictators, politically and with guns and money, starting as long ago as 1958. In the 50 years since then, it has failed to learn that supporting Pakistan's generals and the army they command does little for Pakistan's people. Under American tutelage, the army has grown in size and developed a
fierce appetite for high-tech expensive weapons, which now include nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, and a habit of seizing power while people continue to struggle with grinding poverty and failing institutions. It is no wonder that the United States is deeply unpopular in Pakistan. A 2007 poll found that only 15% of Pakistanis had a favorable attitude towards the United States. This hostility toward the United States will only worsen as Pakistanis see the United States set aside democracy and the rule of law in favor of a general and his army. To get out of this crisis, the international community must demand that General Musharraf immediately end his emergency, restore the constitution and Supreme Court, and fulfill his commitment to step down as chief of army staff. Having lost what little trust was vested in him by the country, Musharraf should also stand down as president. An interim administration could hold elections
and let Pakistanis choose lawful leaders. No one expects elections and a shift to civilian rule to be a panacea. And though Pakistanis have had bitter experiences with democracy, they still prefer it to the army. Elections can mark the start of the long and difficult task of building democratic institutions and creating a system of accountability and trust between government and people, state and society. This can bring Pakistanis some hope for the future, and foster confidence that democracy and the rule of law can deliver the justice that has so long been denied to them. Zia Mian, a Foreign Policy In Focus (www.fpif.org) columnist, directs the Project on Peace and Security in South Asia at Princeton University's Program on Science and Global Security. A.H. Nayyar is the Executive Director of Developments in Literacy, a non-profit group supporting education for the poor in Pakistan. o o o IPS, November 5, 2007 PAKISTAN:
HARD ON CIVIL SOCIETY, SOFT ON EXTREMISTS by Beena Sarwar Marchers rally in front of the Pakistani High Commission in west London to protest the state of emergency. KARACHI, 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