ISLAMABAD, 10 November 2007 — Pakistan’s opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was freed from house arrest late yesterday hours after Washington demanded she be released. “The detention order has been withdrawn,” said Aamir Ali Ahmed, acting deputy commissioner of Islamabad.
The two-time prime minister was earlier stopped from leaving her Islamabad home to lead a rally in the nearby city of Rawalpindi against the imposition of emergency rule by President Gen. Pervez Musharraf.
Benazir twice tried to escape in her car, telling police who surrounded her villa: “Do not raise hands against women. You are Muslims. This is un-Islamic.” They responded by blocking her way with an armored vehicle. In Rawalpindi, police tear gassed hundreds of her supporters who staged protests and hurled stones. More than 100 were arrested.
The White House said it remained concerned about the continued state of emergency “and curtailment of basic freedoms” in Pakistan. “Former Prime Minister (Benazir) Bhutto and other political party members must be permitted freedom of movement and all protesters released,” said Gordon Johndroe, spokesman for the White House National Security Council.
Washington also urged Musharraf to set a date both for holding elections and resigning as army chief to show he means to return the country to constitutional rule.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters: “President Musharraf should roll back the state of emergency, schedule a fixed date for elections coming up. He committed to those elections no later than Feb. 15, he also recommitted to taking off the uniform. He should make that commitment publicly and fix a date for the Pakistani people so that they have an expectation that they are now going to return to constitutional rule and the pathway to democracy.”
Also yesterday, a suicide bomber blew himself up at the home of Minister for Political Affairs Amir Muqam in the northwestern city of Peshawar. Muqam was unhurt but four others died.
An Interior Ministry spokesman said 2,500 people had been detained since the emergency was declared, though Benazir’s Pakistan Peoples’ Party says 5,000 of their activists have been picked up in the past couple of days.
Railway Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said Benazir’s detention was meant to protect her from suicide bomb attacks, as well as stop her from going to Rawalpindi. A suicide bomb attack killed 139 people at a procession in Karachi to welcome Benazir’s return to Pakistan after eight years of self-imposed exile on Oct. 18.
Musharraf has sacked most of the country’s judges, putting senior officials under house arrest, and ordered police to round up the majority of opposition leaders.
Police yesterday sealed off a cancer hospital set up by Imran Khan as they sought to track down the cricketer-turned-politician who slipped out of his house late Saturday. An officer said that police had cordoned off the Shaukat Khanum Memorial Hospital in Lahore “to search for Imran Khan.”
— Additional input from agencies
