Violent clashes over Musharraf re-election bid in Pakistan (Roundup)

Sep 29, 2007, 11:12 GMT

Islamabad - More than three dozen people were injured Saturday when police clashed with hundreds of protesters in the Pakistani capital Islamabad as the Election Commission approved President Pervez Musharraf's re-election bid.

Riot units baton-charged a column of more than 300 lawyers, who tried to reach the commission's office when Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and several other ministers arrived to respond to the objections against Musharraf's candidacy.

The objections were later dismissed, and the commission cleared Musharraf and five other candidates, including Makhdoom Amin Fahim from opposition Pakistan People's Party(PPP) and a retired judge, Wajihuddin Ahmed for the presidential vote on October 6.

None of them is regarded as posing a serious threat to the incumbent leader, who took over in a bloodless military coup in 1999.

Tear-gas shells were used to disperse the crowd carrying black flags and chanting anti-Musharraf slogans, and both sides resorted to flinging stones in running battles for several hours.

'Our 35 to 40 colleagues were injured and ten of them severely,' the head of Supreme Court Bar Association Munir Malik told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

They were brutally manhandled and this was fascism in its purest form, he said, adding that the protests would continue and the lawyers would come back on Monday with new petition against Musharraf's re-election plan.

The police also beat up the journalists, leaving four of them severely injured.

Aziz and Minister for Information Mohammed Ali Durrani quietly watched the scene from the commission's building, where they remained besieged for more than four hours.

Durrani left the building hiding in an ambulance, while his deputy Tariq Azim was chased and beaten up by angry crowds.

The government also blocked TV transmission of several news channels, particularly in Islamabad, to prevent them from airing live coverage of the demonstrations.

Around three dozens people, including four members of parliament and five female protesters, were arrested in the disturbances, which followed Friday's Supreme Court verdict that Musharraf may run for a further five-year term while still serving as army chief.

Six members of a panel of nine senior judges threw out petitions filed by the opposition seeking to obstruct Musharraf's candidacy on constitutional grounds.

The legal fraternity immediately called for a countrywide 'Black Day' to protest the verdict, claiming that it was given under pressure from the government.

Thousands of lawyers boycotted court proceedings and held rallies in several cities on Saturday, including Lahore, where the security forces also used tear gas to disperse around 2,000 protesters.

'The verdict has serious flaws and therefore the lawyers are not happy with it,' the chairwoman of Human Rights Commission of Pakistan Asma Jehangir told dpa.

'My analysis is that our judiciary is not ready to play the role of a guardian of the constitution,' she said, adding that the overall objective of the protests was to restore democracy in the country.

The demonstrations also spread to other parts of Islamabad.

Around 200 opposition workers blocked a road by setting tyres on fire in Islamabad's main commercial Blue Area.

General Musharraf, who came to power in a 1999 coup, has said he will shed his uniform by November 15 if he receives a further mandate from parliament and the national assemblies.

'But this man is not a very truthful character because he promised in the past to give up army chief post by the end of 2004, but never kept it,' said a senior PPP leader Begum Abida Hussain.

The demonstrations came days after the authorities rounded up hundreds of opposition workers and leaders in a crackdown that started last weekend. Many of them were released on Friday on the orders of the Supreme Court.