Posted on 06/02/2003 5:45:26 PM PDT by blam
Islamists impose Taliban-type morals monitors
By Ahmed Rashid in Lahore
(Filed: 03/06/2003)
The Islamist ruling parties in Pakistan's sensitive North West Frontier Province have ordered compulsory prayers for the population and will create a Taliban-style Department of Vice and Virtue to enforce their ruling.
The move is part of a campaign by fundamentalists to turn the whole of Pakistan into a Taliban-style state and is only one of several crises that has paralysed the country and the nine-month-old civilian government.
The six-party Alliance of Islamic parties, the Mutahidda Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), which rules the province, said all offices, shops and schools would be closed at prayer time so that all males could go to the mosque.
The Department of Vice and Virtue is to recruit young Islamic zealots to enforce the ruling on the streets.
The MMA were ardent supporters of the Taliban and still assist and support its guerrilla war against United States forces in Afghanistan.
Before the fall of the Taliban, its Department of Vice and Virtue had unlimited power to harass Afghans.
Last Friday, the North West Frontier Province Assembly passed the Sharia (or Islamic law) bill, which would dramatically change the province's educational, judicial and financial systems and bring them in line with fundamentalist Islamic laws. The same day, MMA supporters went on a celebratory rampage in Peshawar, the province's capital, tearing down advertising hoardings showing women, destroying satellite cable television connections and attacking offices of foreign multinationals. The police stood quietly by, refusing to control the mobs.
Emboldened by their success, Maulana Fazlur Rehman, the MMA secretary-general, demanded on Sunday that the government impose Sharia law throughout the country.
Schools in the province have been ordered to replace boys' uniform of trousers and shirts with traditional dress, while girls have been ordered to cover their heads.
So far, President Pervaiz Musharraf has been silent. "Far from criticising the MMA or reining in its militants, the military's intelligence agencies have worked overtime to pave the way for their forceful entry into the corridors of power," said the Friday Times, a liberal political weekly.
Some politicians are convinced that the army and the Interservices Intelligence (ISI) are allowing the mayhem to continue so that Gen Musharraf, who is also army chief, can dismiss parliament and reimpose military rule.
The MMA came to power in the North West Frontier Province after October's controversial elections in which the army and ISI helped it to win a majority of seats.
Any woman with a thought of remaining of more value than a goat should be hightailing it out of Pakistan for India or even Afghanistan.
yitbos
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