PAKISTAN: The Pakistani President calls a crisis meeting, as lawyers bear the brunt of a police crackdown. Benazir Bhutto flies to meet other opposition leaders

A high-level meeting chaired by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf on Tuesday (November 6) reviewed the overall security situation in the country, following the imposition of emergency law. The meeting was attended by Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, Information Minister Muhammad Ali Durrani, Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao and Vice Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Pervaiz Kiyani. According to a government press release, Musharraf told the meeting there was "a need to gear up the law enforcement agencies so that they were in a better position to cope with militancy and extremists and to counter the threat of terrorism." He directed the Interior Minister to provide all resources and assistance to the law enforcement agencies so that they could "operate unhindered and reach the masterminds behind the militants, extremists and terrorists." Meanwhile, Pakistan's opposition sought a united response on Tuesday (November 6) to the emergency rule, leaving lawyers to protest alone for a second day and bear the brunt of a police crackdown. Former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto, who returned to her country last month from eight years abroad, flew to Islamabad on Tuesday (November 6) to meet other opposition leaders. A large police force escorted Bhutto as she arrived at Karachi's airport on her way to the Pakistani capital. Opposition politicians, including Bhutto, have denounced emergency rule but have taken no concrete action so far, leaving public protests to the lawyers -- hundreds of whom have been beaten with police batons and arrested. Asked as she boarded her plane in Karachi if she would negotiate with Musharraf, whose emergency rule drew widespread international condemnation, to join a caretaker government, she said: "No and nor do I intend to meet Musharraf." The United States had hoped Bhutto would end up sharing power with Musharraf after elections due in January. The former prime minister has been consulting other opposition leaders on the most serious crisis since the army chief seized power in a 1999 coup. She has denounced the emergency as "mini-martial law", but she has yet to mobilise her supporters on the streets. U.S. President George W. Bush, who values Musharraf as an ally in his battle against al Qaeda and the Taliban, urged the Pakistani president on Monday to lift the emergency he had imposed on Saturday, hold elections and quit as army chief. Troops in Islamabad manned razor-wire checkpoints near the presidential palace, parliament and Supreme Court on Tuesday. In Karachi, police vetted lawyers trying to enter the High Court. Police in the central city of Multan used batons to beat more than a dozen stone-throwing lawyers chanting "Go Musharraf Go" before bundling them into trucks, a Reuters witness said. A dozen more were detained at the High Court in the eastern city of Lahore, according to a Reuters photographer. A protest by about 200 lawyers in Islamabad passed off peacefully. Declaration of the emergency was seen as an attempt by Musharraf to stop any chance of the Supreme Court invalidating his re-election as president by parliament last month on the grounds that he stood while still army chief. After dismissing judges who were too difficult to handle, Musharraf has been filling the Supreme Court benches with more amenable figures. Four more were sworn in on Tuesday, taking the total to 9 -- well short of the original strength of 17. The imposition of emergency rule had raised considerable doubts over whether parliamentary elections, expected in January, would go ahead as scheduled. Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said on Monday polls would be held on schedule, but Musharraf himself has yet to confirm this. Attorney-General Malik Abdul Qayyum said the national and provincial assemblies would be dissolved on November 15, completing their terms, and an election would take place by mid-January. There was no indication of when Musharraf would lift emergency rule, which he justified by citing a hostile judiciary and rising militancy. He said on Monday, however, that he planned to give up his military role in nuclear-armed Pakistan once there was harmony between the judiciary, executive and parliament.

ITN Source | November 7, 2007

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