Opponents arrested as Musharraf tightens grip

Authorities rounded up opposition activists today after President Pervez Musharraf suspended Pakistan’s constitution and declared a state of emergency.

Musharraf blamed rising Islamic extremism for the emergency measures that included replacing the nation’s chief judge and blacking out the independent media that refused to support him.

Today police arrested Javed Hashmi, the acting president of the party of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, along with 10 aides when he stepped outside his house in the central city of Multan.

Police also arrested six lawyers, including the secretary of the Multan High Court Bar Association.

“Musharraf usurped the independence of judiciary by arresting the country’s chief justice and removing others judges just to save his own illegitimate rule, but he cannot survive against the people’s outrage,” Hashmi told reporters as he was led away.

In the capital Islamabad, phone services that had been cut when the state of emergency was declared yesterday appeared to have been restored by today. But transmissions by TV news networks remained off the air in major cities other than state-controlled Pakistan TV.

“General Musharraf’s second coup,” said the headline in the Dawn daily. “It is martial law,” said the Daily Times.

Scores of paramilitary troops at barbed wire barricades blocked access to the Supreme Court and parliament. Otherwise the streets of Islamabad appeared calm.

The US-allied leader declared the emergency despite calls from the US, Britain and other Western allies not to take authoritarian measures. Washington expressed deep concern and called for him to restore democracy, but said it would not affect US military support of Pakistan.

Former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, who had travelled abroad in the wake of an October 18 suicide attack that narrowly missed her but killed 145 others, immediately flew back to the southern city of Karachi, and declared the emergency was the “blackest day” in Pakistan’s history.

In a televised address, Musharraf, looking sombre and composed, said Pakistan was at a “dangerous” juncture, its government threatened by Islamic extremists.

“The extremism has even spread to Islamabad, and the extremists are taking the writ of the government in their own hands, and even worse they are imposing their obsolete ideas on moderates,” Musharraf said, wearing a black button-down tunic rather than his military fatigues.

He also blamed the Supreme Court for punishing state officials and postponing the announcement of his recent election win, saying it had “semi-paralysed” the government.

The court will rule soon on whether to validate the result of the vote that opponents say was unconstitutional because he contested the vote while army chief.

Musharraf replaced the chief justice, Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, who had emerged as the main check on the president, yesterday.

“Now the time for the action has come. I have carefully examined the situation to see how to stop this downslide. We have to create harmony among judiciary, legislative and executive … This is how we would tackle the issue of terrorism in a better way,” Musharraf said.

He said there would be no change in the government and its top offices and parliament – set to dissolve by November 15 – would complete its term. He did not say when parliamentary elections, due by January, would be held.

Private Geo TV reported the arrest of the president of the Supreme Court Bar Association, Aitzaz Ahsan – a lawyer for Chaudhry in the case that led to his reinstatement in July after Musharraf tried to sack him.

Opposition party leader and former Pakistan cricket captain Imran Khan was put under house arrest yesterday and police said they were rounding up opposition activists and lawyers across Punjab province.

The emergency comes as Musharraf’s security forces struggle to contain pro-Taliban and al-Qaida-linked militants who have gained control of large tracts of the volatile north west near Afghanistan.

Fighting in recent weeks has left hundreds dead, including in the once-peaceful tourist resort of Swat, where scores of troops have surrendered to militants who raised a jihadist flag over a police station yesterday.

The violence has also reached major cities with deadly suicide attacks in Islamabad and Karachi, underscoring the threat posed by extremists, as well as the failure of Musharraf’s administration to combat the threat, despite huge financial support from his key international backer, the US.

The order drew swift complaints from the US and Britain – Musharraf’s main Western allies. US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice urged restraint on all sides and a return to democracy in Pakistan.

Bhutto, a long-time rival of Musharraf who recently returned from eight years of exile after talks on possible power-sharing, said after her arrival at Karachi’s Airport that she did not believe there would be fair elections as long as emergency rule remained in place.

“Unless General Musharraf reverses the course it will be very difficult to have fair elections,” she told Sky News television.

“I agree with him that we are facing a political crisis, but I believe the problem is dictatorship. I don’t believe the solution is dictatorship.

“The extremists need a dictatorship, and dictatorship needs extremists.”