Pakistan defies US with new crackdown

Middle East Times

Sami Zubeiri
AFP
November 8, 2007

NEW CRACKDOWN: Pakistani lawyers protest President Pervez Musharraf's imposition of emergency rule outside in Peshawar November 7, 2007. On Thursday, Pakistani authorities rounded up hundreds of supporters of ex-premier Benazir Bhutto and charged four people with treason. (NEWSCOM)

ISLAMABAD -- Pakistani authorities rounded up hundreds of supporters of ex-premier Benazir Bhutto and charged four people with treason Thursday as President Pervez Musharraf defied US calls to end emergency rule.

The crackdown came just hours after US President George W. Bush telephoned Musharraf to urge him to repeal the state of emergency, hold elections in January, and quit as army chief of the nuclear-armed Islamic republic.

A statement by Pakistan's attorney general that elections would be held by February and the state of emergency lifted in one or two months failed to quell the mounting tensions here.

"Elections will be held in February, it has been decided," attorney general Malik Mohammad Qayyum, the government's chief lawyer, said. "The emergency will be lifted in one or two months."

Musharraf imposed the state of emergency Saturday citing growing Islamic militancy and a meddlesome judiciary. He suspended the constitution, sacked the chief justice, and clamped curbs on the media.

The move has sparked days of sporadic protests and led to more than 3,000 arrests, the latest involving supporters of Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP).

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