President Pervez Musharraf Has Declared A State Of Emergency In Pakistan.

Best thread posted all night.

 

go musharraf!

 

This is nothing but a pathetic attempt by Musharraf to hold on to his power which is starting to slip.

 

its a power play

 

No! It's better than all the stupid "election," crap threads. (As if community wasn't boring enough without those threads ...)

Anyway, world news is always important.

 

Yeah, it's not perfect, but it's so much better than so many other places.

 

true but if you were caught up in the survivor thing youd understand...people not playing must be annoyed with it.

 

They're slowly losing the war.

 

what do you expect... it's a basic failed democracy, the number of coup d'etats and exiles... compared to Sri Lanka and India, its political system is one of the worst in the Asian block.

What's gonna suck is if this all blows to the ****ter and fundamentalists manage to take over via "free and fair elections" much like Musharraf's electorial "win." Although that's a sort of nightmare doomsday scenario that I doubt will happen, the country is nuclear first off... and very very unstable with one of the highest support bases for Bin Laden, The Taliban and Al-Qaeda.

The Gov't of Pakistan and its ISI interservice intelligence agency are some of the most pathetic scumbags on the entirity of this planet. While honest Pakistani lawyers protest on the street against Musharraf they get beaten back by the police big time. The problem is, NO OTHER politician right now in Pakistan is trustworthy enough at all.. Bhutto, please... Sharif, a bloody idiotic uneducated puppet and Imraan Khan? he aint gonna get more than 6 votes despite sounding more intelligent than anyone else.

The ISI and the Pakistani gov't safe houses ******s from Al-Qaeda and know clearly and very well where people like Bin Laden are and one of Asia's and the middle east's most wanted criminals... Dawood Ibrahim... That son of a ***** was allowed to parade around in Karachi while his daughter was married off and not one ****ing police member went to arrest him to hand him over to Indian authorities for being involved with over 500 deaths and murders from bomb blasts to kills to crimes of all kind.

Pakistani govt and their ISI services are worse than Mugabe's gov't in Zim.

 

Its gotten worse....

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- Dozens of security forces surrounded opposition leader and former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's house Friday and cordoned off nearby streets, hours before a massive rally organized by her Pakistan People's Party against the state of emergency was due to start, sources close to Bhutto told CNN.


Sources say police have not yet served Bhutto an official house arrest notice.

more photos » The sources said police have not served Bhutto an official house arrest notice, but according to local media reports she has been denied visitors and cannot leave her home.

Friday's rally in Rawalpindi -- a city outside Islamabad where Pakistan's military is based -- has been outlawed by President Pervez Musharraf's emergency order, but Bhutto has been hoping fellow opposition parties will put their differences aside and attend the rally as a challenge to Musharraf's government.

Meanwhile, under intense international pressure to restore democracy in Pakistan, Musharraf announced Thursday that parliamentary elections will be held by Feb. 15 and restated his pledge to step down as the country's military leader.

"I am on record as saying these things so this is not an issue with me," Musharraf said, speaking after his meeting with the National Security Council.

Elections, originally set for mid-January, had been suspended -- along with the country's constitution -- after Musharraf declared a state of emergency on Saturday. His opponents, the target of widespread arrests and detentions, say it amounts to martial law in Pakistan.

The state of emergency will remain in place for at least a month, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, president of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League, told CNN Thursday. In addition, Pakistan's government Thursday began lifting the media blackout imposed as part of the emergency order, allowing CNN and British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) back on the air.

The White House called Musharraf's announcement a positive first step.

"We think it is a good thing that President Musharraf has clarified the election date for the Pakistani people," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said

Musharraf is under tremendous pressure by the United States and other foreign allies to end the state of emergency and set a date for elections.

President Bush said that he delivered that message personally to Musharraf during a Wednesday phone call.

"My message was very plain, very easy to understand, and that is, the United States wants you to have the elections as scheduled and take your uniform off," Bush said.

But Musharraf's opposition said Thursday's announcement is not enough.

"The general opposition in this country want those (Supreme Court) judges to be reinstated," opposition leader Imran Khan told CNN International. "Just lifting the emergency (order) is not good enough for us."

"We intend to resist him (Musharraf) as long as he does not reinstate the chief justice," said Khan, who is in hiding after escaping from house arrest earlier this week.

Musharraf dismissed Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry and the rest of the Supreme Court shortly after Saturday's emergency declaration, and replaced them with his supporters.

Khan and other opposition leaders accuse Musharraf of imposing the emergency declaration as a "power grab" by avoiding the top court's ruling that would have nullified the parliamentary vote that gave him a third term as president.

The newly installed court is expected to approve the vote, paving the way for Musharraf to take the oath of office.

Before the emergency order, he had been scheduled to be sworn in on Nov. 15 and had pledged to step down as military chief after that date.

Bhutto expressed concern about Musharraf's announcement.

In enforcing the emergency order, Pakistani forces have arrested thousands of opposition leaders and banned broadcasts from the independent media.

Five opposition politicians -- including the head of the National Party -- were charged with treason Thursday in Karachi, a government official told CNN.

The crackdown continued Thursday, focusing on Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party. Police told CNN they are working around the clock, enforcing the emergency order during the day and rounding up targeted activists at night. Officials said that from Wednesday night into Thursday, police detained more than 400 PPP activists, although party officials put that number much higher.

Friday's rally in Rawalpindi, like all public gatherings, is outlawed under Musharraf's emergency order, but Bhutto is hoping fellow opposition parties will put their differences aside and attend the rally as a challenge to Musharraf's government.

There are fears on both sides that the rally could turn violent.

"The last time when there was a rally, there was a lot of bloodshed," Pakistani Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri told CNN's Zain Verjee.

"Maybe because of that, the home department of the Interior Ministry feel that they wish to make sure that such ghastly incidents are never repeated again."

Meanwhile, Bhutto spokesman Wajid Hasan in London said that water and electricity has been cut off at the location for the rally. He said the doors to the venue have been welded shut to stop keep supporters out.

Despite their criticism of Musharraf, Bhutto, Khan, and other Pakistani opposition leaders are scrambling to capitalize on the international outrage over the Pakistani leader's move.

Khan -- who is head of the Movement for Justice party which campaigns for an independent judiciary -- criticized Bhutto for not calling on Musharraf to reinstate the Supreme Court justices.

"That's the most significant thing," he told CNNI. "Until she asks for the judges to be reinstated at all costs, we would not consider her the real opposition."


He said her role is "dubious" because she had been involved in power-sharing talks with Musharraf, which she said have since been suspended since the emergency declaration.

That, Khan said, may be why "she's been allowed to roam around while all of us are hiding, or in jail.

 

If Pakistan goes,so does America's puppet in that region.

 

Didnt this guy have a book tour in the States a couple of months ago

 

There is way more at stake then that, if Islamic fundamentalists gain control over Pakistan, they could start a nuclear war with India. pakistan is one giant no win situation, unless extreme caution is used. This fool Musharraf is making a bad situation worse with these petty actions.