AFGHANISTAN & PAKISTAN
Afghanistan summary here and here.
Pakistan summaries here and here and here and here.
Monitoring the pre-’election’ pressure cooker.
#1:
Pakistani journalists marked [Sunday] as a “black day” to condemn police beatings during opposition protests against President Gen. Pervez Musharraf’s pursuit of another five-year term. Musharraf picked up a key legal victory Saturday when the Election Commission approved his candidacy for the Oct. 6 vote — as lawyers and opposition activists staged protests in front of the commission building in the capital, Islamabad.
Protesters clashed with police, who wielded batons and fired tear gas to disperse them before turning on journalists covering the melee.
Sixty-four people were injured, including 13 police officials, 31 journalists, two opposition lawmakers and several passers-by, the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan news agency reported [Sunday], citing an official statement.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court’s top judge will hold a hearing Monday on the violence. He has summoned police, Interior Ministry and district officials to appear for an explanation, according to a court statement that quoted a senior court official as calling the police response “highly excessive.” Police “outnumbered the agitating lawyers … and missed no opportunity to thrash” them, it said.… Article
#2:
Over 230 Opposition lawmakers resigned from Pakistan’s national and provincial assemblies to resist President Pervez Musharraf’s re-election bid, as journalists observed a “Black Day” today condemning the police action during protests against the general.
Eighty-four members of the national assembly and 152 of the four provincial assemblies from the Opposition alliance All Parties Democratic Movement (APDM) submitted their resignations to their respective party leaders, Raja Zafarul Haq, senior leader of Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N), told reporters here. Article
