Many lawyers were wounded yesterday in Pakistan when the police descended on them during protests outside courtrooms in some cities. Hundreds of the lawyers were arrested.
It was the first major show of public anger over the state of emergency declared by the country’s President, Pervez Musharraf.
The incident came amidst mounting international anger over Musharraf’s moves to tighten his eight-year grip on power. The United States (U.S.), which counts Musharraf as a bulwark against Al-Qaeda and the Taliban said it had suspended key defence talks on account of the development.
The biggest protest was in Lahore, where lawyers with bleeding head wounds were bundled into vans after police fired tear gas at around 1,000 protesters outside the high court, an Agence France Presse (AFP) said.
Lawyers said almost all of the demonstrators had been detained, including a retired female judge.
In Karachi, police and paramilitary soldiers sealed off the high court and charged at lawyers who were outside the building, witnesses said.
Clashes were also reported in Rawalpindi, Multan and Peshawar.
"It has never happened in the history of Pakistan that such a huge number of lawyers have been arrested," said one former Karachi High Court judge, Rashid Razvi, adding that more than 100 lawyers were arrested in the city.
Musharraf cited growing Islamic extremism and hostile judges for imposing emergency rule. He suspended the constitution, sacked the nation’s top judge and brought in strict media curbs.
In a sign of the uncertainty enveloping the volatile nuclear-armed nation, where private television news channels have been shut down, rumours swirled that the deputy army chief had placed Musharraf under house arrest.
"It’s nonsense, sheer baseless rumour," his spokesman Rashid Qureshi told AFP.
Information Minister, Tariq Azeem, said the president had been administering an oath to a new Islamic judge and briefing foreign diplomats.
U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates said Musharraf must return his country to "law-based, constitutional and democratic rule as soon as possible.
"We are reviewing all our assistance programmes (to Pakistan), although we are mindful not to do anything that would undermine counter-terrorism efforts," he said on a visit to Beijing.
A Pentagon spokesman travelling with him said the U.S. suspended yearly defence talks with Pakistan because of the political situation. Britain also said it was considering its aid to its former colony.
Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has warned that parliamentary elections due in January could be postponed by one year, while Azeem cast doubt on Musharraf’s promises to relinquish his dual role as chief of the army.
"President Musharraf gave an undertaking to the Supreme Court that he would take off his uniform before taking the oath but now because of the imposition of emergency, the issue is left in limbo," Azeem told AFP.
Musharraf had vowed in September that he would quit the army before being sworn in for a second five-year term after winning an October 6 presidential election.
That step was expected by November 15, the end of his current term, pending a Supreme Court judgment on the legality of the election.
That upcoming ruling is widely believed to have prompted Musharraf to slam emergency rule, following speculation it would have gone against Musharraf.
Aziz said on Sunday that up to 500 people had been arrested in the ensuing crackdown.
They included Javed Hashmi, the acting chief of the Pakistan Moslem League of exiled prime minister Nawaz Sharif, leading rights activist, Asma Jahangir and cricketer turned politician, Imran Khan.
Sacked Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, who has long been a thorn in Musharraf’s flesh, lambasted the post-emergency situation.
"Everything that is happening today is illegal, unconstitutional and against the orders of the Supreme Court," he said in an interview published in local daily The News.
Meanwhile, Australia’s conservative Prime Minister, John Howard, has warned the Pakistani leader over his decision and called for a return to the democratic process.
Howard is a staunch ally of U.S. President George W. Bush and a supporter of U.S. led campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Musharraf generated global rebukes over the weekend after he suspended the constitution and declared a state of emergency in an attempt to prevent the country from, as he said, committing "suicide".
Howard said he told Musharraf that Australia could not support his actions.
"I indicated to him that whilst I retain considerable respect and admiration for the strong stance he has taken against terrorism, that Australia could not support in any way any extra-constitutional behaviour," he said.
"That the rule of law had to prevail and that I hoped there would be an early return to a more democratic path."
Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer said Musharraf’s actions could jeopardise the safety of Australian troops fighting Taliban insurgents across the border in Afghanistan.
"A lot of the support for the Taliban and Taliban elements is coming from the western, south-western part of Pakistan into Afghanistan," Downer said.
He said the state of emergency would divert attention from "the vastly important task for Australia and for the coalition fighting in Afghanistan, of making sure that Taliban and Al-Qaeda operations in Pakistan are closed down."
Downer said his department had called in Islamabad’s High Commissioner in Australia to express Canberra’s concerns but that he did not want to withdraw aid from Pakistan, a course of action under review in the U.S.
"We don’t want to withdraw aid that might be helping to stabilise the country," he said.
The International Bar Association(IBA)’ Human Rights Institute(HRI) also from London yesterday expressed its "grave concern as Pakistan’s constitution is suspended, lawyers and judges arrested."
In a statement endorsed by its Press Officer, Romana St.Matthew-Daniel qouting the Co-Chairs of IBA’ HRI, Justice Richard Goldstone and Ambassador Emilio Cardenas as saying that, "the latest developments in Pakistan represent a serious negation of the rule ,throwing the country into yet great turmoil".
The global body therefore called on the Pakistan government "to reinstate the constitution, abide by the rule of law and remove the state of emergency."