Mandela, Carter condemn Musharraf emergency rule

FE Team | Published: November 10, 2007 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

Pakistani lawyers shout anti-Musharraf slogans as they march during a demonstration in Islamabad.

JOHANNESBURG, Nov 9: (Reuters): A group of former world leaders including Nelson Mandela and Jimmy Carter has denounced Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf for imposing emergency rule and suspending the constitution.
Army chief Musharraf, who took power in a 1999 coup, imposed a state of emergency last Saturday, citing a hostile judiciary and rising militancy in the nuclear-armed U.S. ally.
"These illegal acts have resulted in abuse and incarceration of judges, lawyers, human rights activists, journalists and other moderate and democratic opposition forces," the group, called the Elders, said in a statement issued late on Thursday.
"The Elders support all those freedom-loving Pakistanis who have chosen to join in peaceful expressions of opposition to these dictatorial acts and call upon political leaders throughout the world to insist on a return to a lawful government under Pakistan's constitution," it said.
The Elders group was formed earlier this year in an effort to use the influence of more than a dozen Nobel laureates and former world leaders to reduce conflict and despair around the globe.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu and former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan are members of the group alongside Mandela, the icon of South Africa's anti-apartheid struggle, and Carter, the former U.S. president. Each of the four has won the Nobel Peace prize.
Meanwhile: International television news channels BBC and CNN went off the air in Pakistan again on Friday as opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was placed under house arrest ahead of a protest rally.
Authorities stopped cable operators from broadcasting international and private Pakistani news channels on the weekend, after President Pervez Musharraf imposed emergency rule.
The only television available to most Pakistanis since then has been state television. Pakistani newspapers have been publishing as normal.
The BBC and CNN reappeared on cable channels late on Thursday, when they were reporting Musharraf had promised to hold elections by mid- February.
But both disappeared again on Friday after reporting Bhutto was under house arrest and police had sealed off a park in the nearby city of Rawalpindi, where she had been planning a party meeting in defiance of a ban on rallies.
The censorship of the private news channels has sparked a rush for satellite dishes, and authorities in at least two cities have responded by banning the sale of the equipment.
The media have flourished since Musharraf seized power in a military coup in 1999. He often cited a free media as one of his achievements.
But the media have been highly critical of Musharraf since he tried to sack the country's chief justice in March. Hours after declaring emergency rule, Musharraf ordered the imposition of sweeping reporting curbs.