Pakistani Politics

President Pervez Musharraf distributed a 15-page letter against the detained chief justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry among 30 top journalists of London on an exclusive breakfast meeting here last Monday, to convince the western media that the top judge was corrupt and was rightly dismissed on March 9 followed by his detention on November 3.

President Musharraf took this unprecedented step after the media challenged his democratic credentials for sacking a chief justice and then putting him under house arrest. It was an attempt to counter what the official camp claimed “sheer propaganda” and false claims by the camp of CJ in foreign press.

The major allegations leveled against the detained chief justice in the president’s letter handed over to the foreign journalists before his departure to Pakistan, claimed that CJ Iftikar Chaudhry had triggered judicial activism, indulged in nepotism, had frequent interaction with Pakistani media, intelligence chiefs, military officers, president, prime minister, politicians, and most importantly, he was fond of protocol and harassing the respectable civilian bureaucracy.

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The government is all set to free and then re-arrest immediately three detained lawyers on the expiry of their 90-day detention period on Feb 1 in a move to outmanoeuvre the constitutional bar on preventive detention.

One of the top legal minds of the government confided to The News that the government has decided to free Chaudhry Aitzaz Ahsan, Ali Ahmad Kurd and Justice (retd) Tariq Mehmud for few hours or a day and then re-arrest them by issuing a fresh executive order. About detained judges, including deposed Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, government sources said there is nothing to bother about them because their detention was without any formal order.

“Deposed judges were not under detention,” the source said, asking, “if you have any formal order to prove us wrong?” Under the Constitution, no person can be kept in preventive detention for more than 90 days unless a judicial review board certifies that the person is a threat to public safety, but the government has not referred cases of any of three leading lawyers for judicial review.

Under the Constitution their cases are required to be approved by such judicial bodies in case the government intends to retain their preventive detention beyond mandatory period. A top government legal mind, on condition of anonymity, said the government does not intend to set the three lawyers free and their cases would not be referred to the judicial review boards.

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In an open letter addressed to the president of the European Parliament, the president of France, the prime minister of the United Kingdom, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and to the World Economic Forum, deposed Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry on Wednesday said President Musharraf had slandered him and his colleagues during his recent visit to Europe.

Advocate Athar Minnallah during a crowded press conference here at Islamabad District Bar distributed the copies of the letter among newspersons. “I am the Chief Justice of Pakistan presently detained in my residence since November 3, 2007, pursuant to some verbal and unspecified order passed by General Musharraf,” the letter begins with these words.

“If civilized norms of justice will not be allowed to operate than that space will, inevitably, be occupied by those who believe in more brutal and instant justice: the extremists in the wings,” Justice Chaudhry said.

Justice Chaudhry apprised the world community that he and his colleagues have been detained in their official residences since November 3, 2007.

“With me are also my spouse and three of my young children, all school-going and one a special child, and such are the conditions of our detention that we cannot even step out on the lawn for the winter sun because that space is occupied by police pickets,” said the deposed chief justice.

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PML-N President Mian Shahbaz Sharif has said one party cannot run the country and resolve its problems in this crisis-like situation and proposed that a national government comprising all parties should be formed after the election to save Pakistan.

Addressing ‘Meet the Press’ programme of the Karachi Press Club on Wednesday, he suggested that the national government should chalk out a five-year agenda to resolve the problems of the country.

Shahbaz, who arrived in the city on Wednesday, visited the Bilawal House and offered condolence to the PPP leader Asif Ali Zardari over the tragic death of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

He warned that Quaid-i-Azam’s Pakistan would not survive if parliament endorsed all “illegal” acts of Gen (retd) Pervez Musharraf. He expressed concern over the internal and external situation of the country.

The PML-N leader vowed that he would quit politics if the Q-League won more than 10 seats in the upcoming election. He warned that his party would launch a mass movement if the elections were rigged and the government would be responsible for the situation.

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Several high-profile retired generals, air marshals and admirals, who have asked President Musharraf to resign, have announced to seek an unqualified apology from the Pakistani nation for imposing martial laws in the past, abrogating the Constitution several times and not letting democracy flourish in the last 60 years.

They would make this admission of guilt today (Thursday) at a press conference with a request for forgiveness from the people of Pakistan, who have been suffering at the hands of dictatorship for the role played by them and their successors. They have also invited General (retd) Pervez Musharraf to attend the meeting.

But surprisingly despite their apology, which would be a welcome and refreshing departure from the norm, these adventurous generals and admirals of the past are not showing enough moral courage. They have given the task of seeking the apology to a retired brigadier, Mehmood Qazi. “I will apologise on the behalf of all the ex-servicemen for the past misdeeds,” Qazi told The News.

He is the convener of the meeting to be presided over by Air Marshal (retd) Asghar Khan, a man whose role against Zulfikar Ali Bhutto is well known. The first speaker of Thursday’s meeting will be Lt. Gen. Abdul Majid Malik, a gentleman who was a major in 1956 when he drafted a resignation which General Ayub Khan forced President Iskandar Mirza to sign.

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President PML-Q Ch Shujaat Hussain would take up the issue of his family’s detention at London airport with his lawyers and consider filing a suit against the authorities The News has learnt.

According to a spokesman of Ch Shujaat Hussain, during his stay Shujaat would assess recourse to counter the gross Human Rights violations that occurred with his family members. He, however, refuted reports in a section of media that reported Ch Shujaat’s trip to the UK was on medical reasons.

“It has been clarified that the trip is undertaken to assess the ground realities regarding the wrongful detention of the members of his family and other passengers accompanying them,” he added.

The spokesman stated that the PML president would also take all steps necessary in consultation with his lawyers, to ensure that in future, other law-abiding Pakistanis would be protected from such human rights violations in the name of war against terrorism.

A relaxed President Pervez Musharraf spent his Saturday evening in London, playing bridge with his old buddy Brig Niaz at his home and waiting for Shaukat Aziz to return from Davos to take him to a restaurant for a sumptuous dinner on Sunday evening.

To the surprise of many here, the former PM did not host a dinner in honour of his former boss at his multi-million pound residence in London and preferred to take him out for some good food in probably a Lebanese restaurant, known for delicious Arabic dishes.

For two full days at the weekend, the president did not have any official business except playing bridge with his old friend Brig Niaz, who had reached here last week before his arrival from Islamabad after meeting Shahbaz Sharif in Islamabad.

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The Co-Chairman of the Pakistan People’s Party, Asif Ali Zardari, on Sunday warned that any attempt to rig the polls could result in the weakening of the federation and could put the countryís integrity at stake.

He was addressing a joint meeting of the Central Executive Committee, Federal Council, Sindh Council and party candidates from Sindh at the Bilawal House on Sunday. Zardari said that rigging in the coming polls would be tantamount to the dismemberment of the country but hoped that the people would foil all attempts of “indigenous Gorbachev” in this regard.

He said the PPP politics were based on wait and see policy because every segment of the Pakistani society was with the party and even those politicians who had opposed her, shed tears on her grave and felt genuine grief and sorrow.

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February 18 will arrive with political death for the PML-Q, said PML-N Quaid Mian Nawaz Sharif here on Sunday. He was talking to PML-N delegation at his residence in Lahore.

The delegation comprised Chaudhry Mudassar Jamil, PML-N candidate for national assembly on NA-186 HasilPur, Malik Muhammad Naeem advocate, PML-N candidate for Punjab assembly and others.

“This is the need of hour that President Pervez Musharraf stepped down and formed a national government, having representation of all political parties,” Nawaz Sharif said. “It will make no difference if the elections are postponed for a few days more for the sake of formation of national government, as a national government can save the country,” he observed and stressed: “But the national government must exclude President Musharraf and the Army.” “It is only due to ill-conceived policies of the rulers that other countries are casting an evil eye on our nuclear assets,” he said.

The British media has criticised President Pervez Musharraf for terming a senior Pakistani journalist, M. Ziauddin as anti Pakistan and unpatriotic.

The visit of the president to Britain seems to have been overshadowed by the event as not only human rights activists of Britain, but international media has taken a serious note of the use of language against the senoir journalist.

Local students leaders in Britain have also threatened to move the British justice system by accusing the Pakistani president of inciting the Pakistani community to violence when he told the gathering that such anti Pakistani elements like (Ziauddin) “must be dealt” with for asking such a question.

David Blair, the diplomatic editor of Daily Telegraph wondered how could Musharraf do all this to a journalist who had put a very reasonable question. In his piece David Blair said whatever you might think of President Pervez Musharraf, you have to admit he’s a good performer. “Whenever I have seen him deliver a speech or stage a press conference, I have been struck by his self confidence and easy, jocular manner. But very occasionally, the mask slips. I have just come from the RUSI on Whitehall, where Musharraf was speaking earlier this afternoon. For almost the entire occasion, he was his usual charming self”.

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