More protests in Pakistan as Musharraf refuses to quit (Roundup)

Nov 14, 2007, 13:04 GMT

Riot police stand guard outside Punjab University, one of the largest universities of Pakistan, as students protest against the Emergency rule in Lahore 14 November 2007. Hundreds of protesting lawyers, human rights activists and opposition parties’ supporters have been arrested, since the declaration of Emergency by President and Chief of Army Staff General Pervez Musharraf on 03 November, amid regular clashes between demonstrators and the police across the country leaving dozens injured. EPA/RAHAT DAR

Lahore/Islamabad - Pakistani police on Wednesday detained more opposition leaders, including cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan, at protest rallies against emergency rule, as President Pervez Musharraf refused to leave the office.

Hundreds of lawyers, journalists and opposition workers held several demonstrations across the country against the proclamation of the state of emergency for the 12th consecutive day, intensifying pressure on President Pervez Musharraf to restore democracy.

Scores of students also joined the anti-dictatorship movement on Wednesday when Khan appeared at Punjab University in eastern city of Lahore. But the plainclothes policemen took him into a campus building from where he was moved to a police station hours later.

Khan had been in hiding since the imposition of emergency rule on November 3 and had issued statements urging the students to rise against 'the military dictatorship of General Musharraf.'

His appeals did not seem to go unheard as more than 400 students gathered Wednesday, chanting slogans such as 'Go, Musharraf, go!'

'Musharraf is totally wrong,' student Ahsan Taj said. 'We are against him, and we are against his policies.'

Musharraf, an army general who seized power in a bloodless 1999 coup, imposed emergency rule on November 3, suspending the constitution and fundamental rights, and taking several news channels off the air.

He has cited a rising Islamic militancy as the main reason, but his critics said they believe the measure was used to sack top judges who he thought would rule against his re-election last month.

The authorities also arrested a senior leader, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, together with several colleagues from the party of the opposition leader and ex-premier Benazir Bhutto, in Faisalabad.

He had arrived in the city from Lahore where he kicked off a 'long march for democracy' into Islamabad on Tuesday after Bhutto was placed under house arrest.

The authorities said the Oxford educated liberal Bhutto would for the moment remain in detention.

'We have so far made no decision when to release her,' said Lahore city police chief Aftab Cheema.

Twice deposed on corruption charges, Bhutto had held power- sharing talks with Musharraf for months but broke away after imposition of emergency rule.

'I call on Musharraf to step down, to leave. This country belongs to the people, it must return to the people,' she told reporters from her residence where she was being held.

But the army general rejected the demand. 'The day when there is no turmoil in Pakistan, I will step down,' he told Britain's Sky News television on Wednesday.

'I am not a dictator, I want a democracy,' he added.

The statement came as the country was set to dissolve the upper house of the parliament, National Assembly, as it completes its five-year term on Thursday midnight.

The following day a caretaker government will be set up to hold the general elections in the first week of January.

'The deliberations for the appointment of the caretaker prime minister are underway and hopefully the decision will be made soon,' Information Minister Mohammed Ali Durrani said.

The four provincial assemblies will be dissolved on November 20, as the embattled president announced on Sunday.

US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte was expected to travel to Islamabad later this week to call upon the Pakistani government to lift the declared state of emergency and to hold elections on time in January.

'We want to see an end to the state of emergency, we want to see elections move forward as quickly as possible, we want to see those elections take place in an atmosphere that allows for free, fair and open competition,' US State Department spokesman Tom Casey told reporters.