=> * Says Pemra Ordinance amendments, code of conduct
ISLAMABAD: Fair and free elections in Pakistan are “impossible” following the dismantling of an independent judiciary and a crackdown on critics, a rights group said on Wednesday.
New York-based Human Rights Watch said scores of lawyers, judges and other government critics remained detained in Pakistan despite the lifting of the state of emergency on December 15.
The “dismantling of an independent judiciary and the crackdown on the vocal lawyers’ movement mean free and fair elections, scheduled for January 8, will be impossible,” the international rights group said in its latest report on Pakistan.
The 84-page report, titled “Destroying Legality: Pakistan’s Crackdown on Lawyers and Judges,” presents eyewitness accounts of police violence, arbitrary arrests, and mistreatment of detained lawyers under emergency rule.
“The lawyers’ movement had done more in eight months to challenge the pillars of military rule than the political opposition had done in eight years,” said Ali Dayan Hasan, South Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch.
“Musharraf’s crackdown on legal institutions is a huge setback for human rights and the rule of law in Pakistan.”
Under the revised constitution, the government has new powers to disbar lawyers involved in peaceful anti-government activities, it said.
The military can now try civilians for a wide range of offences previously under the judiciary, including charges as vague as causing “public mischief”, the group said.
Restrictions on the media remain in force and the government has repeatedly warned it will not tolerate the “politics of agitation”, it added.
“A genuine election campaign is impossible when the media remains muzzled, leaders of civil society remain under arrest, and the legitimate judiciary of the country has been deposed and replaced by hand-picked supporters of the government,” said Hasan.
Source: The News
Date:12/20/2007
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