One of the prime excuses that Musharraf, the representative of na-pak generals of our army, gave for proclamation of emergency (martial law) was that the judges were ordering the release of hundreds of people who were picked up illegally by intelligence agencies without any proof.
Now they are releasing those prisoners themselves. It proves that emergency was imposed only to lengthen Army Generals’ grip on Pakistani people.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/12/20/MNB6U1083.DTL
Picture of secret jailing emerging in Pakistan
Nearly 100 freed, told to keep quiet, but stories coming out
Pakistan’s military and intelligence agencies, apparently trying to avoid acknowledging an elaborate secret detention system, have quietly set free nearly 100 men suspected of links to terrorism, few of whom were charged, human rights groups and lawyers say.
Those released, they say, are some of the nearly 500 Pakistanis presumed to have disappeared into the hands of the Pakistani intelligence agencies cooperating with the United States’ fight against terrorism since 2001.
No official reason has been given for the releases, but as pressure has mounted to bring the cases into the courts, the government has decided to jettison some suspects and thereby spare itself the embarrassment of having to reveal that people have been held on flimsy evidence in the secret system, its opponents say.
Interviews with lawyers and human rights officials and a review of cases and court records by the New York Times show how scraps of information have accumulated over recent months into a body of evidence of the detention system.
In at least two other instances, detainees were handed over to the United States without any legal extradition proceedings, Pakistani lawyers and human rights groups say. U.S. officials here and in Washington refused to comment on the cases.
“They are releasing them because these cases are being made public,” said Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui, a lawyer working at the Supreme Court who has taken up many of the cases of the missing. “They want to avoid the publicity.”
In addition, human rights groups and lawyers contend, the government has swept up at least 4,000 other Pakistanis, most Baluchi and Sindhi nationalists campaigning for ethnic or regional autonomy who have nothing to do with the U.S. campaign against terrorism.
In total, human rights groups and lawyers describe the disappearances as one of the grimmest aspects of Pervez Musharraf’s presidency, and one that shows no sign of slowing.
The releases are particularly galling to lawyers because as one justification for imposing emergency rule on Nov. 3, Musharraf accused the courts of freeing terrorism suspects. That decree was lifted Saturday, but the former chief justice and other judges were dismissed and remain in detention. The Supreme Court hearings on the missing have been halted.
While Musharraf criticized the court as being soft on terrorists, **court records show that Chaudhry was less interested in releasing terrorism suspects than in making sure their cases entered the court system.
He said at each hearing that his primary concern was for the families of the missing, who were suffering great anguish not knowing where their loved ones were.**
His main aim was to regularize the detention of the missing, not to free them, Siddiqui said. “Not a single person who was convicted was released on the Supreme Court’s order,” he said.