Posted on 12/15/2007 12:03:36 AM PST by NormsRevenge
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf lifted on Saturday a state of emergency only weeks before a general election slated for January 8.
"Yes, the emergency has been lifted," said a government official who declined to be identified.
Pakistani opposition parties and civil rights activists shout slogans as they march during an anti-Musharraf protest rally against emergency rule, in Karachi, on December 14. The Pakistan government insists basic rights will be fully restored for all people on 15 December when President Pervez Musharraf lifts the controversial emergency rule he imposed in November. (AFP/Asif Hassan)
That's it? No decree or anything?
a little earlier from afp
Pakistan leader set to end emergency rule
Marc Carnegie
ISLAMABAD (AFP) - Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf was set to lift a nationwide state of emergency on Saturday, looking to quell fierce criticism that general elections next month will not be free or fair.
Musharraf imposed emergency rule last month, when thousands were jailed, uncooperative judges were sacked and tough new curbs were slapped on the media in what he said was a move to ensure the nation’s stability.
Most of those arrested under the emergency have been released, and the government insists that basic rights halted when Musharraf suspended the constitution would be immediately restored.
“All fundamental rights will be restored,” Law Minister Afzal Haider told AFP on Saturday. “The lifting of the emergency will ensure that parliamentary elections are free and fair.”
But critics say the end of emergency rule is nothing more than a sop to Western backers, notably the United States, which counts the 64-year-old retired general as a lynchpin in the “war on terror” aimed at Islamic militants.
Hours before the measure was to be lifted, Musharraf issued a raft of constitutional amendments late Friday. Among them, he exempted himself from future challenges by the next parliament to the legality of the emergency.
He cited the national surge in militant violence as well as what he said was interference from the courts when he imposed the emergency on November 3, one month after his controversial re-election to the presidency.
His opponents alleged the real reason was to provide cover for a purge of anti-Musharraf judges, who could have entertained legal challenges to his election as president while he was still head of the nation’s military.
After the purge, the challenges were dismissed and his election was validated by the Supreme Court. Bowing to international pressure, Musharraf then resigned as army chief.
Many of the president’s critics charge that the independence of the courts and the credibility of the January 8 parliamentary election have been compromised, and that the formal end of the emergency is meaningless.
“Musharraf’s so-called return to constitutional rule provides legal cover to laws that muzzle the media and lawyers,” said Ali Dayan Hasan of US-based activist group Human Rights Watch.
“A genuine restoration of Pakistan’s constitution would require Musharraf to return to the constitution and judiciary that existed before November 3,” Hasan said.
Pakistan’s lawyers have been at the heart of the country’s political turmoil since March, when Musharraf tried to suspend the chief justice of the supreme court, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry.
That move, later overturned by the Supreme Court, led to massive street protests and kicked off perhaps the stiffest challenge to Musharraf’s rule since he first seized power in a 1999 coup.
The president eventually succeeded in dumping Chaudhry but he has also been faced with a wave of violence, mostly targeting the military, since an army raid on a radical, pro-Taliban mosque in July left about 100 people dead.
Since then, a sharp increase in attacks has added to the death toll from militant bloodshed — almost 700 people have been killed in Pakistan in those attacks this year, about 450 since the Red Mosque raid, in Islamabad, alone.
That violence has supported his insistence that emergency rule was needed to restore order, and the president will hope lifting the emergency will now make elections for parliament appear to be on the level.
But a poll conducted inside Pakistan, reported by the New York Times on Thursday, found that he is decidedly unpopular and that two-thirds of Pakistanis want him to resign.
The paper said the result indicated that any election of a pro-Musharraf parliament would mean widespread vote-rigging.
The emergency was to be lifted at around 0800 GMT, with Musharraf to address the nation at 1500 GMT.
no decree but some other “adjustments” were made per the afp piece I just posted.
What’s with the picture of Karl Marx and the “Long live socialism” in that protest? Are those who demonstrate against Musharraf in favor of socialist government?? Go ahead and silence them then, I could care less.
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