Lawyers protesting the emergency in Pakistan clashed with the police even as former PM Benazir Bhutto decided to scuttle her talks with General Musharraf.
Lawyers clash with police; SC clears legal hurdle to emergency
ISLAMABAD: Lawyers protesting the emergency in Pakistan clashed with the police for the second successive day on Tuesday even as former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto decided to scuttle her power-sharing talks with General Musharraf.
Talking to newsmen at Karachi airport before proceeding to Islamabad, she strongly refuted reports that she was actually going to the capital to finalise her power-sharing talks with the General. She made it clear that she would not meet or negotiate with Musharraf, especially after his November 3 act of invoking emergency in the country. “No and nor do I intend to meet Musharraf,” she said when asked if she would negotiate with the General to join a caretaker government of national consensus.
Until now, the Pakistani opposition parties had left it to the lawyers’ community to hold protests against Musharraf’s declaration of emergency.
Benazir Bhutto said she was going to Islamabad to preside over a meeting of the Alliance for Restoration of Democracy (ARD) to chalk out the future strategy. She said she still intended to address a public meeting in Rawalpindi, next door to Islamabad on November 9. With leaders from across the world twisting Musharraf’s arm to retreat from his declaration of emergency on Saturday, the most intense pressure may be brewing from inside the country, especially after the decision by Bhutto’s party to confront the General.
In other developments, US President George Bush and other US government officials talked tough but there were indications that American aid would continue to flow to Pakistan. On its part, the Pakistani government roundly rejected the international community’s condemnation of the emergency, terming it an “internal affair”.
Also on Tuesday, the legal hurdle to the emergency declaration was removed with the reconstituted Supreme Court overturning an order of a previous bench headed by sacked chief justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, which termed the declaration as unconstitutional.
In Islamabad, Chaudhry, who claims he is under house arrest at his official residence in the capital, addressed about two dozen lawyers inside the Islamabad Bar Association headquarters via telephone. Mobile phone services in Islamabad were abruptly snapped even as he spoke, apparently to prevent him from continuing.
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