[Reader-list] PK - Karachi 12 mar - Pakistan arrests opposition leaders ahead of planned rallies

[yasir ~يا سر]

Pakistan

Pakistan arrests opposition leaders ahead of planned rallies
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/11/pakistan-arrests-opposition-leaders



   - Haroon Siddique <http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/haroonsiddique> and
   agencies
   - guardian.co.uk <http://www.guardian.co.uk/>, Wednesday 11 March 2009
   14.26 GMT
   - Article history<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/11/pakistan-arrests-opposition-leaders#history-byline>

[image: Nawaz Sharif addresses a press conference in Islamabad]

Nawaz Sharif is the head of the Pakistan Muslim League N party. Photograph:
Farooq Naeem/AFP/Getty images

The crisis engulfing Pakistan
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/pakistan> deepened
today after the government issued orders for opposition leaders, including
Imran Khan and Nawaz Sharif, to be placed under house arrest ahead of
planned rallies against the ruling administration.

Hundreds of lawyers and opposition activists have been arrested today and,
according to reports on Pakistani television, orders have been issued for
the detention of Sharif, the head of the Pakistan Muslim League N party
(PML-N), his brother Shabhaz Sharif, Qazi Hussain Ahmed, the Jamat-e-Islami
leader, and Imran Khan, the former Pakistan cricket captain who is the head
of Tehreek-e-Insaf.

Many opposition leaders are said to have gone into hiding. Pakistani
lawyers, supported by opposition leaders, are due to begin a protest
tomorrow dubbed the long march to demand the restoration of judges removed
from office by the former president Pervez Musharraf.

President Asif Ali Zardari, husband of the assassinated former prime
minister Benazir Bhutto, has failed to fulfil a pledge to restore the
justices since being elected last year.

The clampdown will increase fears for the stability of the country as the
government struggles to contain violent extremists.

Six Pakistani policemen and a bus driver were killed, and six Sri Lankan
cricketers and two team officials wounded last
week<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/sri-lanka-cricket-team-attack>
when
heavily armed men attacked a bus carrying the visiting team to the venue for
the second Test against Pakistan.

Rao Iftikhar, the home secretary in eastern Punjab province, said he issued
orders for a ban on public gatherings there "so that terrorists cannot take
any advantage by targeting political gatherings".

The ban, which gives authorities the right to arrest any protesters, will
remain in force for three months, he said.

The Sindh province home secretary, Arif Ahmed Khan, announced a 15-day ban
on public gatherings today to "prevent a bad law-and-order situation". Sindh
is the main stronghold of the ruling PPP.

But opposition activists have vowed to press on with the planned long march,
which will see protesters gather in cities around the country tomorrow
before leaving for the capital, Islamabad. They have vowed to stage a sit-in
at the parliament building until the judiciary is restored.

Addressing thousands of supporters at a rally in the North West Frontier
Province, Sharif said: "I cannot rest when Pakistan is being taken toward
disastrous circumstances. We cannot compromise when all institutions are
ruined and the system is on the verge of collapse."

Last week's attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team came amid protests
following a court ruling banning the former minister Sharif and his brother,
who was the chief minister of Punjab, from political office.

In August last year Sharif pulled his party out of a coalition with
Zardari's Pakistan People's party (PPP), because of the failure to restore
the judiciary. His supporters saw the latest court ruling as a political
move engineered by Zardari.

A spokesman for Sharif's party, Sadiqul Farooq, said he received reports
from party offices across the country that members were being arrested, but
he had no accurate numbers.

Munawar Hassan, a Jamaat-e-Islami leader, said: "Nearly two dozen of our
supporters have been detained."

Farhatullah Babar, a spokesman for Zardari, said 18 people had been arrested
and would be released once the situation calmed down.

"Some people have announced they are going to defy the ban on public
meetings," he said. "It is sad, but this is what the law says."

In the Punjabi city of Multan the senior police officer, Fayyaz Ahmad, said
42 Sharif supporters were arrested and "would be dealt with according to the
law".