Pat Dollard | Young Americans

Pakistan Media “The News Of Pakistan”:

ISLAMABAD: Several political leaders have been arrested in various parts of country in the wake of declaration of emergency in the country.

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan, Khawaja Asif of Pakistan Muslim Legaue (N) and nationalist opposition leaders Mehmood Khan Achakzai and Qadir Magsi have also been arrested, the reports said.

The acting president of Pakistan Muslim League (N) was arrested in Multan. Former ISI chief Lt General (Retd) Hamid Gul also included among those who have been arrested.

The president of the Supreme Court Bar Association, Aitzaz Ahsan, and other legal leaders including Munir A. Malik, Ali Ahmad Kurd and Tariq Mehmood were also taken into custody immediately after emergency rule was imposed.
The police also picked up five lawyers from southwestern Quetta.

The number of arrests is likely to increase as police continue raids on residences of several other political leaders in. different cities

U.S. Media:

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Police wielding assault rifles rounded up opposition leaders and “rights activists” Sunday after Pakistan’s military ruler suspended the constitution, replaced the chief justice of the supreme court, blacked out independent TV outlets, and deployed troops to fight rising Islamic extremism.

Across Pakistan, police arrested political activists and lawyers at the forefront of a campaign against military rule.

Some 200 armed police stormed the rights commission office in Lahore on Sunday and arrested about 50 activists, said Mehbood Ahmed Khan, a legal officer for the body.

“They dragged us out, including the women,” he said from the police station in the eastern city. “It’s inhuman, undemocratic and a violation of human rights to enter a room and arrest people gathering peacefully there.”

Among those detained were Javed Hashmi, the acting president of the party of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif; Asma Jehangir, chairman of the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan; and Hamid Gul, former chief of the country’s main intelligence agency and a staunch critic of Musharraf’s support of the U.S.-led war on terror.

Authorities arrested Aitzaz Ahsan, a lawyer who represented Chaudhry when Musharraf unsuccessfully tried to fire him earlier this year. Another opposition party leader, Imran Khan, was put under house arrest Saturday.

“It’s a big blow to the country,” said Gul, as a dozen officers took him away in a police van near the parliament in the capital, Islamabad. Hashmi said the army general would not “not survive the people’s outrage.”

In Islamabad, phone service that was cut Saturday evening appeared to have been restored by Sunday morning. But transmissions by TV news networks other than state-controlled Pakistan TV remained off the air in major cities.

Scores of paramilitary troops blocked access to the Supreme Court and parliament. Otherwise the streets of the capital appeared calm, with little sign of demonstrators.

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

“I believe the problem is dictatorship, I don’t believe the solution is dictatorship,” she told Sky News television in a report available via satellite.

In his televised address late Saturday, Musharraf, looking somber and composed, said Pakistan was at a “dangerous” juncture, its government threatened by Islamic extremists who are “taking the writ of the government in their own hands, and even worse they are imposing their obsolete ideas on moderates.

The military ruler, wearing a black button-down tunic rather than his army fatigues, also blamed the Supreme Court for punishing state officials and tying the hands of the government by postponing the validation of his recent election win. The court was expected to rule soon on opponents’ claims that Musharraf’s Oct. 6 victory was unconstitutional because he contested the vote while army chief.

Musharraf on Saturday replaced the chief justice, Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, who had emerged as the main check on the president. His name was deleted from the court’s Web site.

“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.

Musharraf’s emergency order imposed a provisional constitution.

Seven of the 17 Supreme Court judges immediately rejected Musharraf’s emergency order, which suspended the 1973 constitution, and only five agreed to take the oath of office under the provisional constitutional order.

Musharraf issued two ordinances toughening media laws, including a ban on live TV broadcasts of “incidents of violence and conflict.” Also, TV operators who “ridicule” the president, armed forces, or executive, legislative or judicial organs of the state can be punished with three years in jail.

AP News Alert:

Nov 4 05:40 AM US/Eastern

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) - Pakistani government says parliamentary elections have been put on the “back burner” following imposition of emergency rule; no date set.