Emergency In Pakistan: Abandoning Democracy

General Pervez Musharraf said the prime reason for this emergency action is Pakistan's judiciary colliding with its army.

Musharraf said our few judges of Supreme Court have released 61 people, who in the eyes of investigation agencies like ISI, IB and MI, are confirmed, blacklisted terrorists.

By Citizen Correspondent Rehan Syed , Pakistan

Date Posted: 11/06/07

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On November 3, on my way to offer the Maghrib Salat (the prayer performed at the sunset by Muslims), my nephew came to me and said his father was on the phone, asking whether TV channels were still on air. I immediately turned on the TV and discovered all Pakistani news channels, as well as CNN, BBC, and FOX News were gone except PTV (Pakistan Television – the government-owned channel). I learned General Musharraf had declared a state of emergency in the country and suspended the 1973 constitution. This was really shocking and upsetting for all of us in Pakistan.

Unable to watch any TV programming, I logged on to the Geo TV’s website, but was not able to open it, perhaps because so many people were trying to access it. I logged to bbc.com for updates.

I learned that President General Musharraf would be addressing the nation at 2300 hrs. Everybody was waiting for his speech anxiously. We tuned our television set, but the speech did not air until 2345 hrs.

Musharraf started his speech in the usual fashion, as all other dictators used to do. On the day of the October 12, 1999 coup, he was dressed in the army uniform, but this time he was wearing Sherwani (our president and prime ministers’ official/usual dress).

He stated that the prime reason for this emergency action is our judiciary colliding with another state department, which is the Pakistan Army. He said our few judges of Supreme Court have released 61 people, who in the eyes of investigation agencies like ISI, IB and MI, are confirmed, blacklisted terrorists.

The other reason he gave was that our media is not playing a positive role, saying it promoted negativism against the government. He did not specify any channel , but did concede that some channels play a positve role. He also addressed the nation in the English language for those who cannot understand Urdu.

Addressing the west, he asked that it did not demand its standard of democracy, as Pakistan is in the learning phase of civil liberty. “Please bear with me and understand our problems. On the one hand, Pakistan’s sovereignty has been seriously challenged by terrorists, and on the other, the country’s system is semi-paralyzed due the judicial activism,” he said.