Ejaz Asi - Information Designer from Karachi, Pakistan

http://www.dawn.com/2007/06/22/top2.htm

ISLAMABAD, June 21: The counsel for Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry on Thursday said that events of March 9, appointment of the Acting Chief Justice and convening of the Supreme Judicial Council in an ‘unholy haste’ amounted to a coup in the Supreme Court and an extension to the executive’s ‘conspiracy’ to topple the CJ.

“Why could the chief justice not be invited to the SJC (which endorsed the president’s decision to restrain the CJ from functioning) when he (CJ) was only five minutes’ drive away from the Supreme Court building,” asked Barrister Aitzaz Ahsan. He was arguing before a 13-member larger bench hearing a petition filed by the chief justice.

“The March 9 meeting of the SJC was totally illegal and could not have been convened by the ACJ even if his appointment was valid,” he said.

At this, Advocate Malik Mohammad Qayyum, representing the federal government, reached the rostrum to ask: “If this was a coup then coup by whom: either by the executive or by someone else.”

Barrister Ahsan deplored that despite 42 references pending before the SJC against different judges of superior courts, the council passionately pursued the reference against the CJ. “Action against the CJ is discriminatory because the reference against him bears serial No 43 of 2007, which means 42 references are already pending against different judges,” the counsel argued.

“Then where are the other references,” Justice Khalilur Rehman Ramday, the presiding judge, asked.

“This is the question I want to put before your lordship as to why the chief justice is being prosecuted in an unholy haste and in a mala fide manner,” Barrister Ahsan asked. He said so far only one reference, against Justice Shaikh Shaukat, had been taken up by the council while the rest were not touched.

Justice Mohammad Nawaz Abbasi observed that those references might have been simple complaints against judges and not presidential references. This prompted Barrister Ahsan to ask: “What does it mean? Will those complaints be never taken up or heard for adjudication?”

No other judge had been dealt with such haste by the council like the CJ and the manner in which the SJC proceeded without even bothering to find the whereabouts and wellbeing of their own colleague who was under detention cast deep shadow of impropriety on its proceedings, Barrister Ahsan said. “And the restraining order of the council against the CJ proved that the first order by the president was not a valid and legal one,” he explained.

Barrister Ahsan recalled that in a meeting with a British diplomat he had asked what would have happened if a constable manhandled the Lord Chief Justice of Britain (an obvious reference to the manhandling of the CJ by the Islamabad police on March 13). Prime Minister Tony Blair would have resigned within half an hour was the reply of the diplomat, Barrister

Ahsan said. “These are the traditions.”

He described the affidavits submitted by the chief of staff to the president as false, based on hearsay and aimed at maligning the CJ.

He recalled that the president in an interview had admitted that the CJ was under detention and his telephones were cut off by some officers.

The president also admitted that materials for the reference had been collected from intelligence agencies which had nothing to do with snooping on judges.

Barrister Ahsan described the PO 27 (Judges Compulsory Leave Order) under which the CJ was sent on forced leave on March 15 as unconstitutional since it was introduced by a dictator (Gen Yahya Khan), and said that judges were always humiliated during the military rule.

“Had I been the AG, I would have loathed over the distasteful order endeavouring to encroach upon the independence of the judiciary,” he said.

At this, Justice M. Javed Buttar observed: “We have great traditions and many who called themselves great jurists have the honour of authoring the Constitution given by military dictators.”

“But without a chapter on fundamental rights,” Aitzaz Ahsan said and asked what was the necessity of sending the CJ on forced leave if the earlier orders of restraining the CJ were valid. “This shows that the earlier retraining orders were illegal and ineffective.”

In this way, the president also admitted through his conduct that the order of the appointment of the ACJ was also invalid and illegal and, therefore, the convening of the SJC was also illegal, he argued.

Barrister Ahsan said calls made from a mobile phone as mentioned in the affidavit of the chief of staff to the president belonged to the son of the CJ who was in Lahore.

At this, Malik Qayyum informed the court that the government had checked that the calls were made through the tower in Sector F-6/3 (Islamabad), meaning the cellphone was with the CJ at his residence.

“With this claim, the federal government accepts that the CJ was held incommunicado and other phone lines were blocked,” Barrister Ahsan said

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Hamid Mir columnist and GEO anchor, is the man the Musharraf regime tried to muzzle last week. He tells us why he believes the general’s days are numbered.

The battle [between Chief Justice and President Musharraf] has ruined Musharraf’s authority and image in Pakistan like nothing has done before. Questions about the Pakistan army’s role in the country’s politics have been raised once again, but this time, far more seriously than ever before. And the battle, epitomised by the one between the chief justice and the president, is moving fast towards its logical conclusion.

I believe General Musharraf lost the half the battle the day Pakistan’s supreme court ordered the suspension of the hearing against Justice Chaudhry in the supreme judicial council and formed a bench of 13 judges to hear the case. Musharraf fears the 13-member supreme court bench will go with Justice Chaudhry and is planning another reference against the chief justice.

It will not be easy for Musharraf to continue his fight with the chief justice. He will ultimately ask his Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz to resign because it was he who sent the reference against the chief justice to the president.

Second, Musharraf will have to take off his uniform sooner or later, since otherwise it will be difficult for the West to continue supporting a military dictator.

In Pakistan, people have started believing that democratic forces will win this battle in the end and the army will go back to the barracks, this time forever.

This battle will have a negative short-term impact on Pakistan, with a lot of instability for four or five months.

But in the long term, it will bring a positive and long-lasting change in Pakistan, a change that is already visible in the hearts and minds of common Pakistanis. The majority of them want a true democracy, rule of law, supremacy of constitution, independence of judiciary, a strong parliament and freedom of media.

These are no more merely words, people are actually dreaming about it. But they cannot have all these things with a president in uniform sitting over their heads.

I would like to believe that Pervez Musharraf is the last military dictator in Pakistan.

The independent media has played a key role in creating and promoting democratic thinking in Pakistan in the last five years. These days, Musharraf’s power is being threatened not only by some upright judges, but also from a defiant media.

This is the first time the media is fighting back. Some newspaper editors and television channel owners tried to make underhand deals with the establishment, but a majority of working journalists threatened to revolt, even against their bosses.

Musharraf promulgated an anti-media ordinance few days ago just to clip the wings of some television anchors. The next day, I was one of those who led a protest inside the press gallery in the national assembly, the Pakistan parliament.

The government tried to silence our voice with help of some non-journalists who were sent inside the press gallery to resist us, but they were thrown out of the gallery by angry journalists.

The next day, the assembly speaker banned the entry of all journalists, who then staged another protest in front of parliament house. Finally, on Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz’s advice, the speaker banned just me. By banning my entry to parliament, they were trying to send the message that the government is not weak.

Let me not forget to mention America and its role in Islamabad.

I don’t think the Americans are interested in democracy for Pakistan. Democracy will not help them because democratic governments are answerable to their voters; Americans need a man in uniform who will be answerable to the donors instead of voters.

US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte, Assistant Secretary of State Richard A Boucher and the Commander, United States Central Command, Admiral William J Falcon arrived in Islamabad on June 16, and met Musharraf at the same time that Justice Chaudhry was going to Faisalabad to address the bar council.

The US team gave a strong message to the people of Pakistan that Washington is standing behind Musharraf. The troika was not in Islamabad to discuss democracy; they actually wanted Musharraf to do more against the Taliban and Al Qaeda [Images] in Pakistani tribal areas.

The American dilemma is quite obvious. Washington doesn’t want to lose Musharraf, because they have no substitute. No other political leader can bomb his own countrymen just to please Americans. He is their ‘frontline ally’ because they don’t have any other ally.

The US has failed in Afghanistan. The Taliban is back, Al Qaeda is back. Afghanistan will become another Iraq in the next few months. The Americans are also planning to use Musharraf against Iran. This is why they don’t want to lose him at this point of time.

India can only resolve its disputes with Pakistan when there is a democratic government in Islamabad. If Musharraf signs any deal with India in the coming days, the next government will not honour that deal.

The people of Pakistan hope that India, which is the biggest democracy in the world, should make deals only with elected political leaders, and not with old fashioned military dictators.

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Lately the likes of Minister of Information, Durrani (bay-eemani) and Shaikh Rasheed have been condemning local media channels and have been going on and on about how great media west really has. They have been actually giving examples of CNN and other news channels in America who think of national security and interest first and give news accordingly.

Well, what do you expect from retards who have seen nothing but the Raja Bazar of Rawalpindi or GHQ of Pakistan? To see or illustrate the great free western media which is known as Corporate Media’s responsibilities and reporting news that matter, let’s read on Ten important things Americans were not told about.

The fact that most Americans oppose the war in Iraq, and want the president impeached, is testimony to the native intelligence and common sense of the citizens of this nation.

It sure isn’t thanks to the quality of the news Americans’re getting here in America!

1. Most Americans would like to see this president and vice president impeached and removed from office. Newsweek magazine published a scientific poll last October showing that 51 percent of us favor impeachment (including 29 percent of Republicans!), but the corporate media, which normally haven’t met a poll they won’t publish, didn’t publicize this one. And now, when the numbers supporting impeachment are surely even higher, you can’t even pay a polling outfit to ask the question. No wonder most people who favor impeachment still think they’re odd ducks.

2. There is a bill, filed in the House of Representatives on April 24 by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), calling for the impeachment of Vice President Cheney. Since it was filed, it has gained six co-sponsors, including a member of the House Democratic leadership, Rep. Janice Shakowsky (D-IL). Most major media have ignored this important story completely. Most Americans also don’t know that the Vermont State Senate voted overwhelmingly this spring to call on Congress to impeach the president.

3. The president has been declared a felon in federal court. Yet even after Federal District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor ruled last August that President Bush and the National Security Agency were committing serial Class A felonies and were violating both the First and Fourth Amendments by spying on Americans’ communications without first obtaining warrants, Bush continued ordering the NSA to continue the patently illegal program for at least half a year. In reports on the spying program, the corporate media never mention that it has been declared a felonious activity by the federal court.

4. Fifteen Democratic state party organizations have passed impeachment resolutions calling on Democrats in Congress to initiate impeachment proceedings against the president and vice president. The most recent of these, the Democratic Party of Oklahoma, passed its resolution at the party’s annual convention on May 19. Other Democratic Party conventions, in states from Nevada and California to Massachusetts and North Carolina, have passed similar resolutions. Most have been ignored by the corporate media even in their own states.

5. Bush’s so-called “coalition of the willing” is not so willing and is not really much of a coalition either. When’s the last time you’ve heard how many countries are on board with the US in the war and occupation of Iraq? The reality? Britain, the only significant contributor of combat troops besides the U.S., is pulling out, as Italy and Spain did earlier, and many other countries, like Denmark, Lithuania and others, plan to be out of Iraq by August or at the latest December. One indication of the seriousness of situation: the Pentagon no longer lists the countries that are members of the “coalition.” The only mainstream report I’ve seen laying out this collapse in international support for Bush’s war was in USA Today last February.

6. The Homeland Security Department last year awarded Halliburton $385 million in a no-bid contract to construct prison camps designed to hold tens of thousands of unspecified prisoners in the event of domestic unrest. Meanwhile, President Bush has signed a bill altering the insurrection act so that he can declare martial rule and order active duty troops to take charge anywhere in the domestic US in the event of “public disorder.” No one in the corporate media has reported on these developments or asked the White House to explain what it’s all about.

7. There is evidence that Cheney, as CEO of Halliburton, was a patron of the Washington Madam whose client book of high-class call-girls is causing many in Washington political circles—mostly Republicans it appears, who apparently need to pay for their sex—to sweat. So far no mention of the Cheney angle in the corporate media, though they’ve been having fun with the broader story of a political sex scandal. No mention either of how a brave West Point cadet a few weeks ago refused to shake Cheney’s hand on stage when the vice president was handing out this year’s diplomas at the Army’s premiere officer academy.

8. Among the “worst of the worst” of the “evildoers” captured and held as “enemy combatants” at Guantanamo were children, some of them preteens and kids who were under 15 when captured and brought to the island of Cuba–so many in fact that the military had to set up a special facility, called Camp Iguana, just for adolescent and pre-pubescent “fighters.” The corporate media have barely reported on this atrocity (the New York Times ran only one article mentioning child captives, in June 2005). The only wider coverage of this outrage came recently when the government tried to prosecute one such alleged child “terrorist”–Omar Khadr–only to have the military judge in charge toss his case out because the government had misclassified him. Khadr, we learned, was captured in 2001 in Afghanistan at the ripe age of 15, making him one of the older child captives brought to and interrogated at Guantanamo. Under international law, the U.S. was supposed to treat this and other child soldiers as victims, not as war criminals. Khadr, a Canadian by birth, instead has spent five years doing hard time in US captivity.

9. Well-researched reports on the rampant theft of both the 2000 and 2004 elections, and on Republican plans for theft of the 2008 election, such as Mark Crispin Miller’s Fooled Again, have gone unmentioned in the corporate media. Books on the subject, like Miller’s and like Greg Palast’s best selling Armed Madhouse, have never been reviewed.

10. And of course, there’s my own book. The Case for Impeachment, despite its having sold over 20,000 copies in hardcover, and despite its having now come out in a mass-market paperback edition, in both cases printed by a mainstream publisher, St. Martin’s Press, has not received a single review in the corporate media. In this, my co-author Barbara Olshansky and I are not alone. None of the books on the impeachable crimes of this administration, including one by Nixon-era impeachment panelist and former congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman, and one by Judiciary Chair Rep. John Conyers, has been reviewed by a mainstream media outlet.

What we’re talking about here is nothing less than a media blackout of important stories and news.

Thanks to the internet and to the grapevine, and thanks to their basic native intelligence, most Americans seem to understand that we’re being lied to and cheated. What the media blackout of important news does manage to do, however, is keep us all thinking that we are in a minority in opposing things like illegal wars, a trampled Constitution, and stolen elections.

In fact, however, we’re actually the majority. Once we realize this, maybe we will have a movement, instead of a just nation of isolated cynics and complainers.
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DAVE LINDORFF, a Philadelphia-based investigative journalist and columnist, is co-author, with Barbara Olshansky, of “The Case for Impeachment: The Legal Argument for Removing President George W. Bush from Office” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006, and now out in paperback edition). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net

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