KARACHI, 14 July — A spokesman of the Pakistan People’s Party yesterday dismissed the explanation of the Musharraf government that the party was “politicizing cases”. It asked the military regime to face the fact that Asif Zardari, jailed husband of the PPP leader and former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, was shifted to Hyderabad in violation of the Supreme Court order.
“It is clear that the government did not like the statements of the party chairwoman and was trying to control her through her husband. The politics of blackmail was evident in the regime’s actions against the PPP and its leadership,” the party spokesman said.
In a statement, the spokesman said that ever since the euphoria over the military takeover has disappeared and the Musharraf government has admitted its graph was going down, it has increased the victimization of the PPP.
It has launched a propaganda campaign claiming that its ill advised policies were “in the national interest”. However, the national interest could only be defined by the people through fair, free and impartial elections and the present government being unaccountable was not in the national interest, the spokesman said.
The PPP said that the convicted persons like the former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, were released without explanation, while Zardari was being kept in prison along with ten other party leaders to blackmail PPP. If convicted persons can be freed then what right does the government has to keep others behind bars who have been denied a fair trial, the spokesman asked.
The spokesman said that the government has been claiming that the PPP leader had “reposed confidence in the country’s judiciary when the apex court ordered retrial in the SGS-Cotecna cases.” In fact, it was the bench and the judgment given by a particular bench after the tape scandal which was welcomed by the PPP, the spokesman said. This was being misconstrued by the military men who know little about law as being an open confidence. Each judgment and judicial action stands on its own merits according to the universal principles of justice, the party spokesman said.
The Supreme Court bench hearing the SGS case upheld the principle of universal justice whereas the Hyderabad High Court flagrantly violated it, the party statement said. If the regime doubts this, it should invite the United Nations to examine the PPP complaints of judicial bias against Judge Solangi, the party spokesman added.
