Justice Ramday being Forcefully Evicted

It is being reported by Aaj TV and Express News that Justice Ramday is being forcefully evicted from his official residence in Islamabad’s Judges Colony. The locks on the gates have been also broken. At the moment lawyers lead by Athar Minallah are talking with the police about this issue outside his house. Justice Ramday has himself been residing at his private Lahore residence since the Emergency was imposed and remained under house arrest there. Reportedly his belongings inside the house have been thrown out on the lawn. Interior Ministry Adviser Rehman Malik has said that a fact finding committee has been formed and will report on this issue within 24 hours. He has also called Athar Minallah and told him that Interior Ministry had no part in this issue.

A New Diplomatic Order in Pakistan

By JANE PERLEZ

If it was not yet clear to Washington that a new political order prevailed here, the three-day visit this week by America’s chief diplomat dealing with Pakistan should put any doubt to rest.

The visit by Deputy Secretary of State John D. Negroponte turned out to be series of indignities and chilly, almost hostile, receptions as he bore the brunt of the full range of complaints that Pakistanis now feel freer to air with the end of military rule by Washington’s favored ally, President Pervez Musharraf.

Faced with a new democratic lineup that is demanding talks, not force, in the fight against terrorism, Mr. Negroponte publicly swallowed a bitter pill at his final news conference on Thursday, acknowledging that there would now be some real differences in strategy between the United States and Pakistan.

He was upbraided at an American Embassy residence during a reception in his honor by lawyers furious that the Bush administration had refused to support the restoration of the dismissed judiciary by Mr. Musharraf last year.

Mr. Negroponte once told Congress that Mr. Musharraf was an “indispensable” ally, but the diplomat was finally forced to set some distance after months of standing stolidly by his friend. Mr. Musharraf’s future, he said, would be settled by Pakistan’s new democratic government.

Perhaps the most startling encounter for the 68-year-old career diplomat was the deliberately pointed question by Farrukh Saleem, executive director of the Center for Research and Security Studies, at the reception Wednesday evening.

“How is Pakistan different to Honduras?” Mr. Saleem asked, a query clearly intended to tweak Mr. Negroponte about his time as ambassador to Honduras in the 1980s, when he was in charge of the American effort to train and arm a guerrilla force aimed at overthrowing the leftist government in Nicaragua. He was later criticized for meddling in the region and overlooking human rights abuses in pursuit of United States foreign policy goals.

The diplomat demurred, according to Mr. Saleem, saying, “You have put me on the spot.”

Mr. Negroponte had no reply to his next question, either, Mr. Saleem said. “I asked him, ‘What do you know about our chief justice that we don’t know?’ ”

That question was meant to reflect, Mr. Saleem recounted afterward, that the Bush administration had refused to recognize the illegality of the firing of Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, and that many Pakistanis were angered that the United States had signaled it did not favor the reinstatement of Mr. Chaudhry who, it appeared, was too opposed to Mr. Musharraf for Washington’s taste.

Mr. Negroponte and the Bush administration were tone deaf, Mr. Saleem and others said, to the changes in Pakistan, though the message of the tune seemed inescapable.

As they stood on the lawn of a diplomatic residence here in the spring evening, the chairman of the Supreme Court Bar Association, Aitzaz Ahsan, who has led the campaign to restore Mr. Chaudhry, picked up the challenge to Mr. Negroponte.

First, Mr. Ahsan said he told the diplomat, the lawyers were miffed that Mr. Negroponte had not included them on his planned round of meetings. When the lawyers asked for an appointment on Tuesday, they were rebuffed by the American Embassy, Mr. Ahsan said.

Then, Mr. Ahsan, a graduate of Cambridge and one of Pakistan’s most talented orators, gave Mr. Negroponte a 10- to 15-minute discourse on why an independent judiciary was important to fight terrorism.

“I told him that the most effective weapon on the war against terror is a people who have enforceable rights — then they have a stake in the system,” Mr. Ahsan said of his conversation with Mr. Negroponte.

Mr. Ahsan said he argued that an independent judiciary was “a middle ground” between the military and religious fanatics.

When Mr. Negroponte countered that the new Parliament had pledged to deal with the question of the restoration of the judges within 30 days, Mr. Ahsan said he retorted: “I said you can’t build a Parliament on the debris of the judiciary.”

In contrast to Mr. Negroponte, a delegation of legislators, led by Rep. John F. Tierney, Democrat of Massachusetts, chairman of the National Security Subcommittee of the House Oversight Committee, visited Mr. Chaudhry at his home on Thursday. They were the first foreigners to see the judge since police barricades were removed Tuesday after four months of house arrest.

“He believes the Parliament has a vote in the next 30 days and the judges will go back to work,” Mr. Tierney said after talking to Mr. Chaudhry. “That’s his position, and they’re sticking with it.”

Although he had little to do with the lawyers or the judiciary, Mr. Negroponte, accustomed to seeing a limited circuit of figures, starting with Mr. Musharraf, had to widen his contact list this time.

He met with the leaders of the two main parties in the new coalition government, Nawaz Sharif, and Asif Ali Zardari. They were both in exile for much of Mr. Musharraf’s rule. He also met with prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, who was an unknown politician until this week, and the speaker of the National Assembly, Dr. Fehmida Mirza.

Mr. Zardari and Mr. Sharif have said they want to change the military approach of Mr. Musharraf toward the extremists, and work toward talks.

At a news conference in Karachi before leaving, Mr. Negroponte said Washington could work with the new government, but drew the line at negotiations with extremists. “Security measures are obviously necessary when one is dealing with irreconcilable elements who want to destroy our very way of life,” he said. “I don’t see how you can talk with those kinds of people.”

There was some hope, however, he said, of working with “reconcilable elements” who “can be persuaded to participate in the democratic political process.”

In a marked change of tone from the Musharraf era, the new prime minister, Mr. Gilani, said after meeting Mr. Negroponte on Wednesday that Parliament was now the supreme decision-making body. Pakistan supported its long alliance with the United States, but the fight against terrorism would be discussed in the legislature, he said.

Mr. Negroponte’s visit was generally poorly received. Coming in the week that the government was still being formed — a cabinet has yet to be announced — it was widely interpreted as an act of interference, a last effort to prop up a vastly weakened Mr. Musharraf. One television commentator called the visit “crude diplomacy.”

Others said Mr. Negroponte did not understand that Mr. Musharraf was a disappearing figure, isolated and with little power. One of his last loyal aides, Attorney General Malik Mohammad Qayyum, resigned Thursday.

By the end of his trip, Mr. Negroponte indicated that perhaps Mr. Musharraf’s usefulness to Washington had diminished. The future of Mr. Musharraf was up to the Pakistanis. “Any debate or any disposition as regards his status will have to be addressed by the internal Pakistani political process,” he said.

Source: The New York Times

Nation's senior judge, family savor freedom

Smuggling of goods, homework comes to an end—as does boredom

By Kim Barker
March 26, 2008

For almost five months, friends smuggled what the family needed over the back wall: mobile phones and phone chips, two birthday cakes, a remote-controlled toy car, extra groceries and homework.

Inside, the two teenage girls and their younger brother rarely opened the curtains to view the hills behind their home. If they did, men from the intelligence agencies stared back through the chain-link fence. Telephones in the house were tapped or shut off. And police were everywhere, outside the front gate and blocking the two entrances to the neighborhood.

On Monday night, those blockades were finally lifted, and the agency men were sent away. Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, the deposed chief justice of Pakistan, and his family, held under house arrest 142 days since President Pervez Musharraf declared an emergency Nov. 3, were told they were free.

"I didn't believe it yesterday when I heard it," said Ifrah Iftikhar, 19, Chaudhry's elder daughter, on Tuesday. "It's been five months."

For many, the decision to free Chaudhry suggests that parliament may soon reinstate the fired judges —a move that would set up a confrontation with Musharraf and could lead to his ouster. The new ruling coalition has pledged to restore the Supreme Court within a month, and this court could take up cases against the president.

Musharraf, a key U.S. ally in the war on terror who seized power in a bloodless 1999 military coup, is bitterly opposed to Chaudhry, whom he tried to fire in March 2007, a move that led to nationwide protests, a large drop in Musharraf's popularity and Chaudhry's reinstatement last July.

Musharraf alleged that Chaudhry was corrupt and guilty of misconduct. Analysts and lawyers said his independence threatened Musharraf's hopes to stay in power.

In November, as the Supreme Court was preparing to rule on the legitimacy of his election as president, Musharraf fired the senior judges and imposed emergency rule for six weeks.

U.S. officials have not called for reinstatement of the judiciary and have largely ducked questions about Chaudhry, who has been given several awards by American legal groups and law schools. Instead, U.S. officials have emphasized the need for an independent judiciary.

'A great day for Pakistan'
On Tuesday, hundreds of well-wishers visited Chaudhry, carrying flowers and walking past a framed photograph hanging inside the house—a picture of Musharraf swearing in Chaudhry as chief justice in 2005. Politicians, lawyers and even a museum curator came to visit, hugging Chaudhry.

"It's a great day for Pakistan," Syeda Abida Hussain, a former Pakistani ambassador to the U.S., told the former chief justice.

Chaudhry, who celebrated his 59th birthday under house arrest with a smuggled cake, recently told lawyers he would go to the Supreme Court as soon as he was released, but on Tuesday he opted to stay home. Journalists waited in the street. If Chaudhry goes anywhere, he likely would be mobbed, as he is now one of the more recognizable figures in Pakistan.

A Chicago Tribune correspondent was the first Western reporter allowed into Chaudhry's home after the house arrest was lifted. The ousted chief justice does not give interviews to the news media, but he let the reporter meet his guests and talk to the three youngest of his four children.

For many Pakistanis, the decision to keep the entire family at home during Chaudhry's house arrest was particularly offensive. His younger son is disabled and was not allowed regular physical therapy; his elder daughter missed most of her first year of college.

Since November, the family remained inside the home as Pakistan changed outside. Musharraf stepped down as army chief. Opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was assassinated. Her party and other opposition parties won parliamentary elections Feb. 18, largely because of people who said they were tired of Musharraf and wanted an independent judiciary.

During those months, Chaudhry read newspapers and books, watched television and prayed, his children said. Their mother prayed for relief, they said. They played video games—Ifrah Iftikhar mastered Godfather — and they fought over petty things, such as the remote control and who was sitting where. Even though the house is large, with five bedrooms, they mostly stayed upstairs.

"What should we do downstairs?" asked Palwasha Iftikhar, 16. "So boring."

Palwasha, nicknamed "the commander" for her ability to coordinate smuggling and to speak out for her father, said she read the most recent Harry Potter book more than 50 times and spent almost eight hours a day playing video games, mostly Need for Speed.

Balaaj Iftikhar, whose muscle problems make it difficult for him to walk, celebrated his 8th birthday Dec. 25 with a smuggled cake and a single smuggled gift, the toy car. For almost a year, he had planned to celebrate this birthday with 25 friends and a costume party with a Barney-the-dinosaur theme.

While at home, Balaaj, described by human-rights groups as the world's youngest political prisoner, tried to keep up with his classes, doing smuggled homework and secretly sending out his answers.

Neither Palwasha nor Ifrah, who have both decided to become lawyers because of the experience of the past year, wanted to talk about Musharraf. When asked about the president, Balaaj wrinkled his nose and said simply, "Bad boy."

Source: Chicago Tribune

US Meddles Again - Challenge to Pakistan's Sovereignty

Image Source: Dawn

The Other Chaudhrys

Op-Ed by Wasim Arif

The word “Chaudhrys” remains synonymous in Pakistan today with the effervescent Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and his cousin Pervez Elahi. However, this article is not about either of them.

It centres on the “Other Chaudhrys,” Chief Justice Ifthikhar Muhammed Chaudhry, and his wife and their four children, Arsalan, Ifra, Palvasha and Balaj, who were released in accordance with the instructions of the new prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani.

It was Euripides who said that “those whom God wishes to destroy, he first makes mad,” a phrase that finds resonance with the actions of one General Musharraf on March 9, 2007. That was the fateful day when General Musharraf blundered with his “judicial Kargil,” committing the supreme folly of dismissing the holder of one of the highest offices in the land, the Chief Justice of Pakistan.

Even as the nation celebrates now, it continues to mourn the fact that its chief justice and his family remained under illegal house arrest for nearly five months. Such circumstances never prevailed even in mediaeval times, as the chief justice himself remarked in one of his recent statements.

Palwasha Chaudhry is only 16 years old. She had the honour of undertaking a British A Level examination under house arrest, courtesy of our former colonial masters. She gave hope to a nation starved of hope, through her passionate letter to the nation.

The letter, titled “I am a proud child,” captured the imagination of the nation, because its author demonstrated in the letter a confidence and a sense of purpose beyond her years. “We should be proud that Allah chose us to sacrifice for this country. Yes, it is indeed a sacrifice which we have to bequeath, not for ourselves but for this country.”

Balaj, the youngest child of the chief justice, is only seven. His angelic features and smile represent the innocence of childhood and the eternal hope of a better tomorrow. Yet, Balaj too has been under house arrest even though he is ill and requires regular medical treatment. T whole family continued to suffer but remained steadfast by drawing inspiration from their patriarch and role model, Ifthikhar Muhammed Chaudhry

Friend or foe, no one can fail to admire the resolve of the chief justice, not least in that now infamous meeting with the khaki king General Musharraf and his sidekicks, lasting several hours held in Army House. His utterance of “No, I will not resign” must have rocked the sound foundations of the GHQ, resulting in an unexpected desi dose of shock and awe that surprised one and all.

Today these “Other Chaudhrys” are the heartbeat of an entire nation and the sons of the soil, all of whom remain steadfast and supremely confident of their victory and sure in their belief that the struggle of the lawyers will soon bear fruit.

It is true to say that the nation has suffered enough death and destruction and Pakistan has had its unfair share of Tommy-gun and trigger-happy dictatorships. From the Ayub era to Musharraf’s rule, Pakistan has remained imprisoned and at the whims of a coterie of khaki kings, who have raped the Constitution, put it in abeyance and run the country on the power of a fully loaded gun, rather than the will of the people.

The eminent commentator Ayaz Amir hits the nail on the head when he remarks that this is a struggle “about the nation’s future, what is our destiny, is it the worshipping of false gods or a republic based upon law as our founding fathers intended?”

A lawyer founded Pakistan in 1947. This lawyer worked over sixteen hours a day to create the country, hastening his own death as the final price, and thereafter breathed his last for a Muslim homeland fashioned on the glorious principles of Islam. Yet a Pakistan founded on truth and justice has so far eluded us, it remains a pipedream after sixty years, but hope has finally arisen, thanks to a new Pakistan Movement that begun just over a year ago, led by the legendary lawyers’ movement.

Consequently March 9 is now a date to remember, for it has proved to be a defining moment in Pakistan’s history and turned out to be the equivalent of a 9/11 for our khaki kings. Furthermore, the entire crisis has turned out to be a blessing in disguise as it has served as a wakeup call to a comatose nation sleepwalking itself from one disaster to the next.

A few weeks ago the media carried reports about 76-year-old Iqbal Bali and 65-year-old Jahangir Akhter and their six-day hunger strike to protest at the illegal arrest of the children of the chief justice. These are men older than Pakistan itself. However, such is the magic of the “Other Chaudhrys.” No doubt, their sacrifices will be written about in golden letters. The soil of Pakistan salutes the chief justice and his family, for they have made Pakistan the land of the pure once again.

The writer blogs at www.otherpakistan.org/

Source: The News

How the Deposed CJ was Portrayed Pro-Terrorist

The Bush administration and the world was deliberately and systematically presented a mutilated and distorted image of the deposed Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, according to well planned strategy of the Presidency so that Washington may not raise serious objections when the Nov 3 coup against the judges was carried out.

The main objective of this strategy was to convince the US that Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry was soft on terrorists and could create serious problems by asking for the production and release of all missing persons, most of whom were handed over by Pakistan to US.

Top government officials holding key positions in the previous government have revealed in separate interviews that the Presidency had reached the conclusion that it had no option but to take extra constitutional steps to remove the apex court judges, which was impossible without taking the US into confidence.

According to the officials, the government had decided to take advantage of the missing persons’ case which was being heard by the apex court then.

A key plank of the strategy was to produce some of the missing persons but not provide any evidence to the court so that the judges had no legal ground to keep them under detention. “The court was being forced to release these missing persons which would then be presented as a proof of Justice Chaudhry’s sympathy for terrorists,” one official said.

The chief justice and some lawyers had smelled a rat. The chief justice thought it may be a good idea to accept a request for a meeting pending with him from the US Ambassador Anne Patterson and explain the situation. But he used the official procedure and asked the Pakistan Foreign Office to give clearance for the meeting as is required under the rules.

But according to the government strategy, this meeting could be damaging, so the Foreign Office did not give permission to the CJ to see the US ambassador. Accordingly, the CJ declined the meeting with Ambassador Patterson.

But the denial was presented by the Pakistani officials as part of Justice Chaudhry’s anti-American tilt, an official said. “Refusing a meeting with the US ambassador easily conveyed the wrong message to the US government that the sitting judiciary was adopting a hard line on the war on terror,” the official added.

The chief justice had received the Saudi Ambassador in Islamabad on December 8, 2007, but when a US diplomat was then asked whether Ambassador Patterson also wanted to see him, the diplomat was quoted as saying no.

Explaining his answer, the US diplomat had said that Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry had turned down the request for a meeting with the US ambassador twice after his re-instatement on July 20 and before imposition of emergency on November 3. “Now, we don’t feel any need to request for an appointment with Justice Iftikhar as he may also refuse,” the senior US diplomat had told ‘The News’.

Deposed Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry on knowing the US embassy concerns had informed two lawyers in contact with him about the actual situation. Justice Iftikhar told them that it was not he, but the Foreign Office, which had instructed him not to meet the US ambassador.

“It is mandatory for any top official of the judiciary to inform the Foreign Office before meeting such a high profile diplomatic official, and especially in the situation the country was passing through. On our intimation to the Foreign Office, we immediately received a message that we could not meet with the US ambassador and subsequently there was no option other than regretting the US ambassador’s request,” Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry said in his message. The same situation was also conveyed to the US ambassador, credible sources told ‘The News’.

A senior government official said that when the Supreme Court started hearing of missing persons case after restoration of the chief justice on July 20 last, the attorney general and other government officials repeatedly promised the court to provide credible evidence about the alleged involvement of these “traced” missing persons, but never did so.

According to reports, in the post July 20 scenario, cases of only three traced missing persons were decided and subsequently they were released, in the petitions filed by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan and former senator and Pakistan People’s Party’s spokesman Farhatullah Babur. These were Naeem Noor Khan, Aleem Nasir and Hafiz Abdul Basit.

According to these reports, Naeem Noor Khan, a computer expert and resident of Karachi, was released by the agencies holding him on the grounds that he cooperated with them, and because of his help the agencies managed to arrest Musaad Aruchi, who was alleged to be a senior member of the al-Qaeda leadership.

With the information provided by Naeem and his help the UK police arrested a terror gang of 13 people. The Supreme Court was informed on August 20 last that Naeem Noor Khan was released and had reached his home. “The court was never provided with the details of the crimes in which Naeem was involved, otherwise no judge could order release of a person even allegedly involved in such heinous crimes,” a member of the bench hearing the case told a senior lawyer.

These facts are also evident from the Supreme Court record as well as from the media reports published in all leading national dailies in the month of August 2007.

Aleem Nasir, a German national, was arrested by the ISI from Lahore Airport on July 18, 2007, while on his way to Germany on charges of smuggling precious stones and was missing from the same day. He was never even charged by the government of being involved in some terrorist activity, according to a senior former official of the Supreme Court.

“The government did not come up with any proof against Aleem, and he had to be released by the apex court on August 21, 2007,” the official added.

The most important case was that of Hafiz Abdul Basit, who was allegedly involved in a terrorist attack on General Musharraf, according to the official.

“Basit was arrested from Faisalabad by police and was subsequently handed over to the Military Intelligence (MI) on Pindi Bhatian Interchange of Lahore-Islamabad Motorway on the instructions of the then Additional Inspector General of Police Tariq Pervez, who was DG-FIA at the time of hearing, as court was informed by the police officials themselves.

The attorney general was quoted by all the newspapers of Pakistan on August 21 and 22, telling the apex court that proof of his involvement in heinous crimes will be provided to the court. This was never done.

When Attorney General Malik Qayyum was approached by this scribe last week and asked why the Supreme Court was never provided with authentic proof of involvement of Basit, Aleem and others, his response was: “This is an old case, and I don’t remember anything about it.”

Another important case heard along with these three persons was that of Imran Munir, a Malaysian Pakistani. According to one official this case seriously damaged the credibility of the whole process of detaining civilians by secret agencies on terrorism charges.

“Imran was in love with the niece of Brigadier Mansoor of ISI. He was invited to dinner by Brigadier Mansoor and went missing from that day,” Imran Munir’s attorney, Mujeeb Pirzada, told the Supreme Court on Aug 20, 2007, after Imran was traced in Mangla Cantt.

Imran’s sister provided evidence that her brother loved the niece of Brigadier Mansoor of ISI. This, she did outside the Supreme Court building the same day.

“This was the first incident which told the world that some of the missing persons in the custody of intelligence agencies of Pakistan were not just terrorists but also lovers. It was the worst case which demolished the credibility of intelligence agencies,” the former Supreme Court official said.

He added: “The most interesting point was that government officials never came up with any allegation of involvement of Imran in any terrorist activity but shockingly, he was sentenced to eight years imprisonment by a military court, Field General Court Martial (FGCM), on spying charges. Loving a niece was equal to spying for a military court, it proved.

This conviction had been set aside, and his retrial was ordered by another military court, the SC official said. But this higher military court did not order Imran’s release because of the serious nature of allegations levelled against him.

According to the former senior official of the SC, the SC bench hearing these cases comprised deposed Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, Justice Faqir Muhammad Khokhar, Justice M Javed Buttar, Justice Nasirul Mulk and Justice Raja Fayyaz Ahmed.

“The bench was of the view that all the missing persons should be produced before the court and should be prosecuted and kept in jail in accordance with the Constitution,” the official said, adding: “The bench never made even any observation indicating that it wanted the release of those persons involved in terrorist activities.”

The official also repeated that the allegations regarding supporting terrorism levelled by the General Pervez Musharraf at the time of imposition of emergency on Nov 3 against the apex judiciary was about the Lal Masjid case.

The official said that it was worth mentioning that Justice Faqir Muhammad Khokhar and Justice Muhammad Nawaz Abbasi, who first took suo moto action and then heard the case, were both invited for taking oath under PCO on Nov 03 last.

Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry himself had told The News on Nov 04 last that if any alleged terrorist was released by the Supreme Court, it was not the judges’ fault but the government never provided any evidence justifying the arrest.

He had then said: “I have never been lenient towards the terrorists, but it was not possible for the judges of the Supreme Court to start punishing people without any evidence against them.”

He had also revealed that out of his serious concern over terrorism, he set up a committee under him that included judges from each provincial high court to expedite terrorism cases. Every month, he had said, the said committee used to meet and review the cases of terrorism to ensure that there were no delays.”

The official said that all the drama of presenting some innocent people as alleged terrorists and criminals was the part of a conspiracy against the country’s judiciary just to deceive the outside world that our judges were supporting terrorism and were hard liners.

Source: The News