ISLAMABAD, 11 November 2007 — Pakistan yesterday announced plans to lift a state of emergency within a month and allowed opposition leader Benazir Bhutto to move out of her house. But her attempts to meet with sacked Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry were thwarted by a posse of armed police.
Attorney General Malik Muhammad Qayyum said the state of emergency would “end within one month.” He provided no further details and would not say when a formal announcement might come.
A heavy security cordon thrown around Benazir’s Islamabad villa to keep her from going to a rally of her supporters was lifted yesterday morning and she was allowed to leave, meeting first with party colleagues and then addressing a protest by journalists.
But dozens of helmeted police blocked her white, bulletproof Land Cruiser when she tried to visit sacked chief judge Chaudhry. Standing outside Chaudhry’s house, she said through a loudhailer: “We recognize you as the real chief justice.”
Benazir also announced plans to defy a ban on public gatherings and lead her supporters on a 300-km Lahore-to-Islamabad march this week.
“I request... all segments of the population to join us in the struggle for democracy. When the masses combine, the sound of their steps will drown out the sound of military boots,” the two-time prime minister told the protesting journalists. Thousands of people have been arrested, TV news stations taken off air, and judges removed since the imposition of emergency on Nov. 3. Yesterday, three reporters from Britain’s Daily Telegraph newspaper were ordered to leave Pakistan for an editorial in the paper that used an expletive in an allusion to Musharraf, said Deputy Information Minister Tariq Azim.
The three are Isambard Wilkinson, Collin Freeman and Daniel Macelroy. Wilkinson said he could not comment and referred phone calls to the newspaper’s London headquarters. There, a spokeswoman said she could not confirm the report.
Benazir is due to head to Lahore today, and has said Musharraf can defuse the protest if he restores the constitution, removes his army uniform and calls elections by mid-January.
US President George W. Bush yesterday renewed his call for Musharraf to lift the state of emergency and return the country to constitutional rule “as quickly as possible.” Asked at a joint news conference with visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel at Crawford whether he believed in Musharraf’s pledges to hold elections by February 2008 and quit as army chief if confirmed as president, Bush replied: “I take a person for his word until they are proven unreliable.”
Meanwhile Canada called on the Commonwealth to push Pakistan for a timetable on returning to democratic rule.
— Additional input from agencies
