Bhutto House surrounded by Police

[Zirwaan Khan]

Bhutto house surrounded by police

The house of Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto has been surrounded by police, hours before her party is due to hold a mass rally.

She has not been formally placed under house arrest, and police say the measure at her residence in Islamabad is for her own safety.

Several thousand of her supporters are reported detained ahead of the rally planned to be held in Rawalpindi.

Rallies are outlawed under the current emergency rule in Pakistan.

There have also been warnings that the protest, due to start at 1300 (0800GMT) could be targeted by suicide bombers.

It is still unclear whether Ms Bhutto is actually under house arrest.

"She's free to go anywhere but if she tries to go to the rally she'll be stopped," said an anonymous government official quoted by Reuters news agency.

On Thursday, President Pervez Musharraf pledged that he would hold elections by 15 February, but Ms Bhutto dismissed his words as "vague".

She also called for General Musharraf to give up his role as army chief.

"This is yet another vague announcement. We want him to hang up his uniform by 15 November," said Ms Bhutto.

Suicide bomb warning

She had vowed to go ahead with a protest rally in Rawalpindi on Friday and then a march from Lahore to Islamabad on 13 November if Gen Musharraf does not meet these demands and end the state of emergency.


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The police chief of Rawalpindi, Saud Aziz, meanwhile warned that up to eight suicide bombers were in the city ahead of Friday's planned protest.


"Naturally they will target big public meetings like what you have seen in Karachi," Mr Aziz told the AFP news agency.

Ms Bhutto survived an assassination attempt in Karachi on 18 October that killed nearly 140 people.

Earlier the PPP said more than 700 party members had been arrested overnight ahead of the rally planned for Rawalpindi.

The authorities have warned that police will not allow the demonstration to go ahead.

'Indispensable ally'

Gen Musharraf announced his decision to hold parliamentary elections before 15 February hours after coming under pressure from US President George W Bush to hold elections in January, as scheduled.

The president imposed a state of emergency on Saturday, blaming militant violence and an unruly judiciary.



On Wednesday, Mr Bush had telephoned the Pakistani leader to urge him to call off the state of emergency and stand down as head of the army.

"My message was that we believe strongly in elections and that you ought to have elections soon and you need to take off your uniform... so I had a very frank discussion with him," Mr Bush said.

But he also noted that Gen Musharraf had been an "indispensable ally".

Gen Musharraf told state media: "General elections in the country will be held by February 15 next year... It was my commitment and I am fulfilling it."

He also renewed a pledge to quit as head of the army, if and when the Supreme Court validated his recent election as president for another term.

"When they allow this notification, that is the time when I can take the oath as president and remove the uniform," he said after chairing a meeting of the National Security Council.

A government spokesman also said a media blackout would be eased, with international channels like the BBC and CNN allowed back on air.

Meanwhile the man sacked by Gen Musharraf as chief justice of the Supreme Court, Iftikhar Chaudhry, has called on Pakistanis to forget their differences and stand up for the supremacy of the constitution.

Speaking to the BBC, Justice Chaudhry said an independent judiciary was essential for democracy:

"The new chief justice and judges do not have a lawful constitutional position. As far as running any sort of campaign on the streets is concerned, our campaign will be run by the 160 million people of Pakistan and the political parties," he said.

BBC

[Raz]

Current ArticleUpdate @ 1240: Benazir Bhutto detained, HRCP website blocked
By ange on Nov 9, 2007 in Crisis, Pakistan, crisispk | Share This

I’ve just received a SMS from Doc that Benazir Bhutto has been detained at her residence in Islamabad while one of the activists on the ground in Pakistan sent in a message via Skype, stating that the HRCP (Human Rights Commission Pakistan) website has been blocked in Pakistan by the PTA (Pakistan Telecommunications Authority).

For those in Pakistan, the HRCP website can still be accessed using an anonymizer, RSF (Reporters Without Borders) have listed out technical ways to get around censorship online and an excellent resource on blogging anonymously can be found here by Global Voices Online.




Update @ 1400: Benazir Bhutto comes out of her house
By ange on Nov 9, 2007 in Crisis, Pakistan, crisispk | Share This

Via SMS, just hours before Benazir Bhutto was set to start off her party’s peace rally, she was detained and placed under house arrest at the Zardari house in Islamabad:

Despite Pakistani security forces surrounding her house, Bhutto has just stepped out of the house and police have led her to a nearby waiting car. The BBC and CNN have been taken off the air again in Pakistan by PEMRA (Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority) along with other international news channels, just minutes after Bhutto left the house.


Follow-up Update:
In a live phone call to Geo TV, Benazir Bhutto stressed that no one had served her with an arrest warrant while our sources in Islamabad Bhutto has been seen making her way to the peace rally being held today via back-roads and that the police is looking for her.

Update @ 1520: Rubber bullets fired at demonstrators in Rawalpindi
By ange on Nov 9, 2007 in Crisis, Pakistan, crisispk, sms | Share This

Just received the following via SMS (although cell phone voice reception has been disrupted by the jammers, the text messaging service is functional):
Benazir Bhutto is trying to reach Liaquat Bagh while Pakistani security forces have fired rubber bullets at demonstrators in Rawalpindi where a peace rally is being held today by the PPP (Pakistan People’s Party) and mobile jammers are in use by the police within the area.

Update @ 1614: Bhutto prevented from attending rally in Rwalpindi
By ange on Nov 9, 2007 in Crisis, Pakistan, crisispk | Share This

Bhutto tried to leave her compound in Islamabad 35 minutes ago to Rawalpindi but the police didn’t allow her to, she then made her way into her white SUV with a loudspeaker, her supporters surrounded her land cruiser and have broken through lines of police cordons. She was supposed to deliver her speech to the peace rally in Rawalpindi but has been unable to make it since the government has stated that they are preventing her from reaching the rally for her own safety after the Pakistani Federal Minister’s house was targeted in a bomb blast a few minutes ago. The minister - Ameer Muqat wasn’t at home at the time. And HRCP sends in an email informing us that their website is now back online.