ISLAMABAD - A Pakistani opposition leader on Sunday accused President Pervez Musharraf of trying to crush dissent after police held dozens of people who vowed to protest against the military rulerÂ’s re-election.Police served four leaders of a pro-democracy alliance with 30-day detention orders on Saturday night and kept them under heavy guard at their parliamentary lodgings in Islamabad.
| "Hokay, into da wagon wit yez!" |
Javed Hashmi, the acting chief of exiled former premier Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League party, said his lawyer would challenge his ‘illegal’ detention in court. ‘They want to crush every voice of dissent,’ Hashmi told AFP from the parliamentary apartment where he is being held.
| Seems like they're making some headway ... |
The opposition coalition, called the All Parties Democratic Movement, has vowed to block MusharrafÂ’s bid to win another five-year term in a vote by the federal and provincial assemblies on October 6.
‘They have confined me for 30 days, but we will continue to raise our voice for the rights of the people of Pakistan, for democracy and against military dictatorship,’ Hashmi said. ‘They want power by the use of force, not by the power of the ballot,’ added Hashmi, who was freed from jail by the Supreme Court in August after serving three years on sedition charges.
Deputy information minister Tariq Azeem said the ‘preventative detentions’ were justified. ‘These people were threatening to storm the Supreme Court and attack the election commission. No government can allow them to take the law into their hands,’ Azeem told AFP. ‘Some leaders are under preventative detention to ward off any threat to law and order to protect the sanctity of the institutions,’ he said.
| Because the sanctity of the institutions could be sullied by having, you know, a fair vote ... |
| Don't they threaten that about every other week or so? Somehow they never seem to get around to actually doing it ... |
Sharif’s party said its leaders have ‘left their homes for safer places’ while several dozen had been detained. ‘This is sham democracy,’ spokesman Ahsan Iqbal said. ‘The regime is proving our point that it is autocratic not democratic.’
Police would not confirm the full number of arrests.
| Coppers in a police state generally don't. |
| Dumb, dumb, dumb move; beginning of the end for him right there. |
| "But they said I could stay!" "And we say you go! Into the baggage compartment wit yez!" |