SUPPORT THE RULE OF LAW AND THE LAWYERS OF PAKISTAN ON MONDAY – 01/26/09!

WHAT:         Pervez Musharraf Lecture (World Affairs Council)

WHEN:         Monday January 26, 2009

WHERE:      The Franklin Institute, 222 North 20th Street Philadelphia, PA

TIME:           5:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.

CONTACT: pakistanjusticecoalition@gmail.com

Please join the Pakistan Justice Coalition and the Philadelphia Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild on Monday January 26, 2009, to reiterate the significance of the rule of law and human rights over repression and autocratic rule.  As lawyers we have a professional and ethical responsibility to confront violations of the rule of law no matter where they occur.

See: Philadelphia Bar Association’s Statement; Pennsylvania Bar Association’s President’s Statement; American Bar Association’s President Neukom’s Statement; Defending Dictatorship: U.S. Foreign Policy and Pakistan’s Struggle for Democracy.

The World Affairs Council of Philadelphia has invited, Pervez Musharraf, former military dictator of Pakistan “to address the prospects for peace and the formidable challenges of diplomacy in South Asia.”  It is ironic that a former military dictator has been invited to lecture on the subject of democracy and the prospect of peace when his rule resulted in Pakistan becoming, as President Clinton declared, “the most dangerous country in the world.”

The Bush Administration supported the Musharraf regime on the grounds that it was an ally in the so-called “war on terrorism” and overlooked its violations of fundamental democratic rights.  However, the true battle being waged today is not between democracy and “terrorism.” Rather, it is the battle between advancing the values of democracy, rule of law and human rights, on the one hand, and repression and autocratic rule on the other. The way to combat extremism and the repressive rule to which it aspires is by supporting the expansion, rather than the contraction, of human rights.

Background Information:

On November 3, 2007, the President, in his capacity as Chief of Army Staff, declared an emergency and issued a Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO) and suspended the constitution. Musharraf ordered the arrest and detention of twelve (12) of seventeen (17) Supreme Court Justices, sixty (60) Senior Judges and several thousand lawyers, journalists, and civil society members throughout Pakistan.  Further, the (PCO) suspended fundamental rights guaranteed by Pakistan’s Constitution such as freedom of movement, assembly, association, speech and property rights.  In response bar associations all over the world condemned Musharraf’s actions.  The Philadelphia Bar Association stated, “We condemn the actions of the President of Pakistan, who has taken it upon himself to violently attack the lawyers and judges as he systematically shuts down his nation’s lawful institutions of justice. That he does this in the name of fighting terrorism is horrible in the extreme. Institutions of democracy should never be victims of fear. It is precisely this strength of democracy that guarantees that a just society may continue, especially in troubled times.”  On August 18, 2008, in order to avoid impeachment proceedings, Musharraf resigned as Pakistan’s President.

Musharraf’s rule at a glance:

• General Perevz Musharraf came to power in 1999 through a military coup;
• Musharraf held the post of President and Chief of Army Staff (COAS) in violation of Pakistan’s Constitution;
• Post 9-11, Pakistan received $11 billion dollars in direct U.S. aid for fighting terrorism, funds that Musharraf diverted in efforts to retain his support within the military and upgrade weapons to be used against India while terrorism related violence increased;
• Pakistan’s intelligence agencies detained hundreds of persons without providing them any procedural due process protections pursuant to Pakistan’s Constitution.  Over six hundred persons are still missing in Pakistan;
• Journalists and press outlets faced state censorship, repressive policies imposed by the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA), direct and indirect threats to media institutions and individual journalists, loss of advertising revenues, revocation of broadcasting licenses and, most insidiously self-censorship;
• Journalists working along the Afghan border alleged that Musharraf’s government engaged in direct support of militants by providing arms, ammunition and supplies;
• Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) admitted that they led the effort to manipulate Pakistan’s national election in 2002 and offered to drop corruption cases against candidates who would back President Musharraf and Musharraf issued a series of executive decrees to bar political party leaders from contesting the polls;
• A historically unprecedented number of national and provincial seats went to the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), an alliance of six religious fundamentalist (Pro-Taliban) parties;
• In 2006, Musharraf reached an agreement with tribal leaders along the Afghan border in Balochistan entailing the withdrawal of Pakistan’s military from the tribal areas in exchange for self-policing by tribal leaders. A  2007 NIE revealed that, after having been displaced from Afghanistan by the NATO invasion following 9-11, al-Qaeda had reconstituted its network and expanded its original capabilities in Pakistan;
• Nuclear proliferation by Pakistani authorities remains uninvestigated. In 2004, nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, whose work establishing Pakistan as a nuclear state won him acclaim as a national hero, admitted to running an international technology smuggling operation which provided nuclear weapons technology to Libya, Iran, and North Korea. Despite his initial arrest, he was eventually pardoned by Musharraf and has yet to be produced for debriefing by international investigators despite demands by the U.S. House of Representatives and the Swedish Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission; and
• Prior to his 1999 military coup, Musharraf led Pakistan in an armed conflict with India in the Kargil region in northern Kashmir.  The Pakistani military fought alongside armed militant insurgents such as Lashkar-e-Taiba.

New York:
Date: Saturday, March 15
Time: 4:00pm – 5:30pm
Location: Outside the Pakistan Consulate (5th Avenue, E 65th St)
For info, contact Saad Mustafa
saadmustafa.rizvi@gmail.com <mailto:saadmustafa.rizvi@gmail.com>
(857-334-8012)

Washington DC:
Date: Sunday, March 16.
Time: 1:30 pm.
Location: outside the Pakistan embassy (3517 international court)
For info, contact Ghazia Aslam
ghaziaslam@gmail.com <mailto:ghaziaslam@gmail.com>
(703-663-0960)

Press Coverage of the events can be found here.