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Musharraf tries to stifle outcry over emergency Simon Cameron-Moore and Zeeshan Haider Police detained Pakistani opposition figures and lawyers on Sunday as military ruler President Pervez Musharraf tried to stifle the outcry over the imposition of emergency powers. The United States and other Western allies condemned General Musharraf's decision to announce emergency rule on Saturday. Musharraf said he acted in response to rising Islamist militancy in nuclear-armed Pakistan and what he called a paralysis of government by judicial interference. Most Pakistanis and foreign diplomats believe his main motive was to prevent the Supreme Court invalidating his October 6 re-election by parliament while still army chief.
(Article continues below) Musharraf, in a midnight televised address, said the country was in grave danger of becoming destabilised. "I cannot allow this country to commit suicide," he said, after purging the Supreme Court of judges opposed to him and rounding up lawyers. The United States, which regards Musharraf as a crucial ally against al Qaeda in Pakistan and neighbouring Afghanistan, had earlier urged Musharraf to avoid taking authoritarian measures. Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, who became a cause celebre after Musharraf suspended him eight months ago and was reinstated in July, was fired after refusing to take a fresh oath following the suspension of the constitution. A lawyers' movement that emerged at the vanguard of an anti-government campaign last March called for a countrywide strike on Monday to protest Musharraf's move. Pakistan's English-language newspapers were unforgiving of the draconian measures that included a ban on any coverage "that defames, and brings into ridicule or disrepute the head of state" on pain of up to three years' jail. "General Musharraf's second coup," was Dawn's headline. "It is martial law," the Daily Times splashed across its front page. "He has sent the country into a tailspin just to save his job," the Nation said in an editorial.
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