Pakistan lawyer vows fresh protests

Society Pakistan & World Affairs
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One has to Commend the lawyers for their great stand and taking on the might of the dictator head on. Hats off to them and Aitzaz Ahsan.

Pakistan lawyer vows fresh protests

The Pakistani lawyer who spearheaded protests calling for the restoration of the country’s chief judge, last night vowed to revive a lawyers’ movement after next month’s parliamentary elections. The move promises to open a new front against Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan’s president.
Aitzaz Ahsan, president of the Supreme Court bar association and a former interior minister, told the Financial Times: "Once the elections are out of the way, we will be back and we will protest for independence of judiciary and rule of law.
“The question is how long can you suppress the lawyers’ movement?” said Mr Ahsan.
His comments came as at least 40 people were killed and scores of others injured in a suicide bomb blast at a mosque in north-western Pakistan during a holiday to celebrate the Eid-al-Adha festival marking Muslims’ annual pilgrimage to Mecca.
Mr Ahsan was yesterday again placed under house arrest, a day after his release to celebrate the festival. He had been under house arrest since a state of emergency was imposed on November 3. The emergency conditions were lifted a week ago.
Mr Ahsan said that up to 45 of the 90 judges from the Supreme Court and the four provincial high courts were opposed to Mr Musharraf’s actions and “remain dedicated to our cause”.
Mr Ahsan’s comments are a reminder of the threat Mr Musharraf faces as he seeks to consolidate his control over Pakistan’s judiciary. Within hours of the emergency rule, Mr Musharraf appointed a new chief justice of the Supreme Court, replacing Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhary who had a reputation for being independent minded. A large number of lawyers have boycotted the courts in protest at the move.
Yesterday’s mosque attackin the city of Charsadda was believed to have targeted Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao, a former interior minister. He was unhurt.
“He is a prime target for Islamic militants angry with him for overseeing at least a partial role in Pakistan’s contribution to the war on terror,” a Pakistani intelligence officialsaid.
Almost 1,000 people have been killed this year in attacks across Pakistan.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/41d5ac22-b031-11dc-b874-0000779fd2ac.html

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Re: Pakistan lawyer vows fresh protests

According to what I've heard: the police who rearrested Aitzaz pointed a gun to his face and said "this is your order" when he asked to see the warrant for his arrest.

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Re: Pakistan lawyer vows fresh protests

Pakistan lawyer back under arrest
Aitzaz Ahsan, Lahore, 20 December
Mr Ahsan is a leading critic of President Musharraf
A leading anti-government lawyer in Pakistan is back under arrest, hours after he was freed for the Eid holiday.

Aitzaz Ahsan was picked up at a motorway restaurant on his way from Lahore to Islamabad, his family said.

“Six armed men, including four uniformed police, appeared and dragged him to a waiting police van,” his son, Ali Ahsan, told Reuters news agency.

Mr Ahsan was arrested six weeks ago under a state of emergency which President Musharraf ended on Saturday.

Government ‘scared’

Aitzaz Ahsan said on Thursday his house arrest had been lifted for three days over the Muslim holiday of Eid.

“There was tremendous pressure to release him, nationally and externally,” said his son.

“But the government got scared after his release when he met with members of the opposition and talked to all the media.”

Aitzaz Ahsan reiterated on Thursday that he intended to continue campaigning for dismissed judges to be reinstated.

He rose to prominence this year when he acted as chief counsel for judge Iftikhar Chaudhry, the chief justice President Musharraf suspended in March and finally ousted in November under emergency rule.

Police prevented Mr Chaudhry from leaving his house on Friday to offer Eid prayers.

The lawyers’ campaign snowballed into anti-government protests during the spring and summer.

The demonstrations - and a wave of militant attacks which show no sign of abating - have provided President Musharraf with his toughest year in office since he seized power in 1999.

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Re: Pakistan lawyer vows fresh protests

Musharaf is despicable… The Lawyers are truly courageous to stand toe to toe with this dictator. More power to them! :jhanda:

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http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/23/opinion/23ahsan.html?ref=opinion

Op-Ed Contributor
Pakistan’s Tyranny Continues

By AITZAZ AHSAN
Published: December 23, 2007

Lahore, Pakistan

THE chief justice of Pakistan’s Supreme Court, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, and his family have been detained in their house, barricaded in with barbed wire and surrounded by police officers in riot gear since Nov. 3. Phone lines have been cut and jammers have been installed all around the house to disable cellphones. And the United States doesn’t seem to care about any of that.

The chief justice is not the only person who has been detained. All of his colleagues who, having sworn to protect, uphold and defend the Constitution, refused to take a new oath prescribed by President Pervez Musharraf as chief of the army remain confined to their homes with their family members. The chief justice’s lawyers are also in detention, initially in such medieval conditions that two of them were hospitalized, one with renal failure.

As the chief justice’s lead counsel, I, too, was held without charge — first in solitary confinement for three weeks and subsequently under house arrest. Last Thursday morning, I was released to celebrate the Id holidays. But that evening, driving to Islamabad to say prayers at Faisal Mosque, my family and I were surrounded at a rest stop by policemen with guns cocked and I was dragged off and thrown into the back of a police van. After a long and harrowing drive along back roads, I was returned home and to house arrest.

Every day, thousands of lawyers and members of the civil society striving for a liberal and tolerant society in Pakistan demonstrate on the streets. They are bludgeoned by the regime’s brutal police and paramilitary units. Yet they come out again the next day.

People in the United States wonder why extremist militants in Pakistan are winning. What they should ask is why does President Musharraf have so little respect for civil society — and why does he essentially have the backing of American officials?

The White House and State Department briefings on Pakistan ignore the removal of the justices and all these detentions. Meanwhile, lawyers, bar associations and institutes of law around the world have taken note of this brave movement for due process and constitutionalism. They have displayed their solidarity for the lawyers of Pakistan. These include, in the United States alone, the American Bar Association, state and local bars stretching from New York and New Jersey to Louisiana, Ohio and California, and citadels of legal education like Harvard and Yale Law Schools.

The detained chief justice continues to receive enormous recognition and acknowledgment. Harvard Law School has conferred on him its highest award, placing him on the same pedestal as Nelson Mandela and the legal team that argued Brown v. Board of Education. The National Law Journal has anointed him its lawyer of the year. The New York City Bar Association has admitted him as a rare honorary member. Despite all this, the Musharraf regime shows no sign of relenting.

But for how long? How long can the chief justice and his colleagues be kept in confinement? How long can the leaders of the lawyers’ movement be detained? They will all be out one day. And they will neither be silent nor still.

They will recount the brutal treatment meted out to them for seeking the establishment of a tolerant, democratic, liberal and plural political system in Pakistan. They will state how the writ of habeas corpus was denied to them by the arbitrary and unconstitutional firing of Supreme and High Court justices. They will spell out precisely how one man set aside a Constitution under the pretext of an “emergency,” arrested the judges, packed the judiciary, “amended” the Constitution by a personal decree and then “restored” it to the acclaim of London and Washington.

They will, of course, speak then. But others are speaking now. The parliamentary elections scheduled for Jan. 8 have already been rigged, they are saying. The election commission and the caretaker cabinet are overtly partisan. The judiciary is entirely hand-picked. State resources are being spent on preselected candidates. There is a deafening uproar even though the independent news media in Pakistan are completely gagged. Can there even be an election in this environment?

Are they being heard? I’m afraid not.

*Aitzaz Ahsan, a former minister of the interior and of law and justice, is the president of the Supreme Court Bar Association of Pakistan. *

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Re: Pakistan lawyer vows fresh protests

When Musharraf is deposed, they should ask Aitezaz Ahsan and Munir Malik on how to get some payback... Revenge is a dish best served cold...

English word game
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http://www.radionetherlands.nl/specialseries/guts/071220-chaudhry-pakistan

Pakistani chief justice challenged powerful elite

by correspondent Suzanna Koster

21-12-2007

Courageous people swim against the current and challenge prevailing views. A new Radio Netherlands World series: portraits of people who have acted courageously in 2007. Today, former Pakistani Chief Justice Iftikar Mohammad Chaudhry, who did what none of his predecessors dared to do: he stood up to the Pakistani regime.

Iftikar Mohammad Chaudhry
It appears that former Pakistani Chief Justice Iftikar Mohamed Chaudhry has enormous courage. Nobody else in Pakistan 60-year judicial history has dared to challenge the government as frequently as he has. He even openly criticised the military’s Secret Service.

Human rights activists had complained that, over the last few years, hundreds of people had been illegally detained in the fight against terrorism. Many of them were opponents of Pakistani President, General Pervez Musharraf. Chief Justice Chaudhry demanded that the detainees appear in court. His call was partially heeded but many of them are still missing.

Powerful elite
According to both supporters and opponents, he opened hundreds of court cases on a wide range of issues, including preventing a sports field being turned into office blocks and stopping plans to privatise the national steel company. Pakistan’s powerful ruling elite lost large sums of money through both cases.

It is no small achievement for a judge who bowed to pressure from the military regime in 2002 and signed and amended constitution. Other judges had resigned in protest against the amendments that legalised President Musharraf’s 1999 coup.

It is Mr Chaudhry’s past record that makes his recent activism so unexpected. Especially when one considers that the judiciary has always been the right-hand of Pakistan’s powerful rulers.

Corrupt
Analysts say that Mr Chaudhry was suspended in March 2007 for his activism, but officially he has been charged with corruption. His march to fame and international recognition stems from his suspension. Mr Chaudhry, a slender, shortsighted man that analysts describe as being not very well spoken and un-intellectual, became a hero to the Western-oriented better-educated middle classes. Wherever he goes in Pakistan, hundreds of thousands of people turn out to greet him.

Nobody was in the slightest bit surprised that President Musharraf decided to get rid of Chief Justice Chaudhry after the Supreme Court rehabilitated him. The president declared a state of emergency in November of this year. All the judges who voiced opposition to the decree were fired.

Guts - profiles of people with exceptional courage On the evening of the declaration, the Chief Justice smuggled legal ruling out which called on the military, the Pakistani people and his fellow judges to refuse to co-operate with the state of emergency. It was his last heroic deed. Police officers removed him from his chambers and placed him under house arrest in Islamabad. The state of emergency was lifted a month ago but Mr Chaudhry is still under house arrest.

Personal vendetta
Some Pakistani commentators say that Mr Chaudhry has gone one step too far in his battle and it has more to do with a personal vendetta against President Musharraf and his own desire to maintain his star status than with any concern for ordinary Pakistani citizens. However, the posters of the Chief Justice plastered in shop windows and in cars leave no doubt about his enormous popularity.

At least once a week, human rights activists, opposition leaders and ordinary people gather at the barricades outside Mr Chaudhry’s house to demand that he be freed. In a country where power usually trumps Justice, Mr Chaudhry is still seen as the only man with enough guts to stand up to the powerful army.

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Re: Pakistan lawyer vows fresh protests

Why is the dictator so afraid of the CJ, isn't he supposed to be so popular that people have not come out in the streets to protest against him.