Imran Khan released.

Thank God Imran Khan has been released by the government.  Hopefuly he will end his hunger-strike and pick up from where he left off.

 

Imran Khan released from prison

Imran Khan was detained after attending a protest in Lahore Khan’s reaction The Pakistan opposition politician, Imran Khan, has been released from prison in southern Punjab where he has been held under anti-terrorism laws.The former cricketer was arrested by police last week after attending a protest at Punjab University in Lahore. On Monday, Mr Khan began a hunger strike in protest at his detention. He is demanding the restoration of the constitution and the reinstatement of supreme court judges who were sacked after emergency rule was declared. Mr Khan’s release comes a day after Pakistani authorities freed more than 3,000 people who were detained under emergency regulations imposed by President Pervez Musharraf on 3 November. A spokesman for the interior ministry said many others would be released soon. Unexpected release A senior leader of Mr Khan’s Tehrik-i-Insaf party, Omar Cheema, told the BBC that he had been released from Dera Ghazi Khan jail on Wednesday. The prison’s superintendent, Sheikh Inamur Rehman, later confirmed the release, adding that it had been carried out on the instructions of the provincial government at 1945 local time (1445 GMT). Imran Khan’s sister, Allema, said she was concerned by his health “I personally saw him off at the prison gate,” he told the AFP news agency. The BBC’s Chris Morris had travelled to the prison with three of Mr Khan’s sisters earlier on Wednesday, only hours before his unexpected release. After visiting him inside, Mr Khan’s sister Allema confirmed he had eaten no food since Monday and drunk as little as 100ml of liquid over the past two days. She said her brother appeared rather weak and that they were very concerned by his deteriorating health. “But he chided us for showing weakness and he said we should urge the youth of Pakistan to go on a token hunger strike to press for the restoration of the judiciary,” Ms Khan added. Our correspondent says Mr Khan’s family were as surprised as anyone by his release. When 3,000 detainees were released on Monday, the Pakistani interior ministry said that anyone who had been charged would not be released anytime soon. Mr Khan’s release may therefore be partly because his detention was making waves internationally and causing embarrassment for the government, our correspondent says. While he may not be one of the leading politicians in Pakistan, Mr Khan is a known name around the world, he adds.

The issue at hand

Many Musharraf apologists are trying to present Musharraf as a lesser evil than Pakistan’s politicians.   

Unfortunately the issue is not about whether Musharraf is a good guy or a patriot or whether Benazir Bhutto is corrupt or not… it is about Pakistan and Pakistani people’s aspirations of a constitutional democratic order. A constitutional democratic order cannot be sacrificed for good governance or our own ideas about how the state should be run. Many of Pakistan’s alleged problems i.e. diversity of its people, language (though today 95% Pakistanis speak Urdu fluently), religious and sectarian divide, urban-rural divide, women’s issues, minorities’ rights.. would have gone away long ago, had we just followed the process.

There are some salient points that must be underscored:

1. Civilian constitutional order must be supreme. Military’s role is to man the frontiers and frontiers alone.

2. The fountainhead of power should always be the people.

3. Pakistan’s Military’s interests have NEVER coincided with the interests of the country.

4. A process cannot be judged if it is not allowed to function more than 10 years at a time. If Pakistan’s democracy is allowed to function, it will automatically correct the problems that Pakistan faces i.e. feudals etc.

As for those who still believe that Musharraf is some sort of a fortress against extremism should consider the following:

a. Lal Masjid incident was entirely the doing of the ISI. The extremist Mullah brothers were allies of the ISI and were encouraged to carry out activities in Islamabad so that the spectre of Islamic fundamentalism can be kept alive. In the end the Pakistan Army just decided to do away with them after using them.

b. Imran Khan’s arrest by the police through the good offices of the Jamiat-e-Tulaba shows that the military regime is – as always- in touch with the extremists it made alliances with in the 1980s… and even earlier.

c. The only way to fight terrorism and extremism in Pakistan is through democracy… unfettered and unstinted democracy. As the saying goes .. the solution to a bad democracy is MORE democracy… and even more democracy… and the worst democracy is better than the most benevolent dictatorship…

As for those who actually believe either of the two things below that a) this is a mere Emergency or b) this Emergency was justified by extremist elements in north west allow me to give you the legal position.

1. This is NOT an Emergency. This is a Martial Law. Emergency is IMPOSED under the constitution and is perfectly legitimate. In this case it was the Chief of Army Staff who issued a PCO and SUSPENDED the constitution.
So this is NOT a constitutional emergency but a fascist martial law.

2. If extremism is justifies this action, surely a constitutional emergency under Article 232-236 of the Constitution would have fulfilled that requirement. But Musharraf took an extra-constitutional measure.

Here is why:

A constitutional emergency would have allowed the Supreme Court to function which means that the judges would have thrown dictator Musharraf out for being ineligible to hold the office of the President of Pakistan.

So this has nothing to do with extremists. Any government has the right to impose emergency in grave conditions but that emergency has to be under the Constitution and not outside of it.

Any state- especially one with so many fissures and points of view- is held together by a constitutional legal order. By taking that away, we bring the state to nothing.

We- the citizens of Pakistan- regardless of whether we are patriots or not… regardless of which way our forefathers stood on what issues… regardless of our self image and the identity of our choice… should realize that a constitutional order is the best defence against tyranny… tyranny of the majority, tyranny of the wretched establishment, tyranny of an anti-people military regime.

Pakistan beats India

Pakistan beat India in the final one dayer to bring the tally to a 2-3 loss in the series.  This is significant because India has over the last few years made progress in closing up the gap between Pakistan’s  success rate. Under Imran Khan’s leadership, Pakistan had mounted an unassailable lead over India but recent years have seen defeats, though Pakistan won the last series in India 4-1.

Pakistan’s shock defeat in the final of the T-20 World Cup, a game that Pakistan came very close to winning,  has established India as the better of the two teams in recent times but Pakistan continues to have the superior over all record. 

Pakistan defeats India

 Pace bowler Sohail Tanvir and off-spinner Shoaib Malik bowled Pakistan to a 31-run victory against India in the fifth and final limited-overs international Sunday.

Chasing Pakistan’s 50-over total of 306 for six wickets, India was all out for 275 on the penultimate delivery with Tanvir (4-53) and Malik (3-61) doing the major damage.

India still won the series 3-2, having already secured a series-clinching lead in the fourth one-dayer Thursday.

Left-arm pacer Tanvir demolished India’s top order as he snared Gautam Gambhir (12), Sachin Tendulkar (30) and Virender Sehwag (10).

Malik capped his top-scoring batting display by removing Rohit Sharma (52), skipper Mahendra Dhoni (24) and debutante Praveen Kumar (12) to demolish India’s recovery chances.

After slumping to 62 for four, India’s redemption came through half-centuries from Sharma and Yuvraj Singh (50), but captain Malik claimed wickets at a crucial juncture to ensure victory for Pakistan.

Malik and Mohammad Yousuf’s aggressive knocks had earlier rescued Pakistan from a top-order slump.

Malik hit a smashing 89 and shared a brisk 168-run partnership from the fourth wicket with Yousuf, who posted 74 to bolster Pakistan after Indian paceman Shantakumaran Sreesanth had snared three wickets in the space of 12 runs.

Malik struck two sixes and six boundaries from 82 deliveries, while Yousuf’s knock contained just four boundaries from the same number of deliveries.

Asked to bat first after Indian captain Dhoni won the toss, Pakistan got off to a sound start as Salman Butt (36) and Imran Nazir (20) put on 65 runs for the opening wicket.

Pakistan’s innings suffered a slide after Butt got out, trying to hook a short-pitched delivery from Sreesanth.

Sreesanth (3-52) induced an edge from Yasir Hameed (1) into the gloves of Dhoni and held a return catch from Nazir to leave Pakistan tottering at 77 for three.

Malik and Yousuf then shared the innings-building stand that broke in the 43rd over when Malik was stumped by Dhoni off left-arm spinner Murali Kartik.

Dhoni also effected a stumping, off part-time spinner Yuvraj Singh, to remove Yousuf.

Misbah-ul-Haq played a cameo knock of 22 and Fawad Alam remained unbeaten on a brisk 32 to set India a challenging target.

An appeal to Pakistani Americans

When members of the terrorist Islami Jamiat-e-Tulaba wing of the fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islamic seized the widely known ex-cricketer and pro-democracy politician Imran Khan in Lahore, it confirmed what had been said in whispers: that the Pakistan Army has revived its Cold War contacts with the militant fundamentalists that had been conscripted by the CIA and Pakistan against the Soviets in Afghanistan.

Those like myself who had once supported Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf as the next great reformer in the Muslim World have been disabused of that notion thoroughly. Pakistani Americans should take note, and take action.

Consider: None of the leaders of the religio-political parties have condemned Musharraf’s actions in the last week or so. None has actually come out against Musharraf’s martial law. Now their so-called student wing – in effect a terrorist outfit – has taken to kidnapping one of Pakistan’s finest political leaders.

This opens up a bigger question: Is the insurgency in Pakistan’s Northwest region by a bunch of rag tag tribesmen against one of the most well equipped fighting forces in the world a scripted war to fool the White House into supporting General Musharraf’s illegal and unconstitutional regime?

And worse: Is General Musharraf now in actual alliance with Osama Bin Laden? Increasingly under pressure, it is clear that Musharraf has called on favours from old Cold War allies against another old Cold War ally: the United States.

What should the United States do? First, the US needs to realize that Pakistan is not like other Muslim and Arab countries.

Pakistan has a strong pro-democracy element. The US needs to allow Pakistan’s genuine political parties to come together and forge a true alliance to drive out both the military and militancy. An alliance of the center left Pakistan People’s Party (led by Benazir Bhutto), the center right Pakistan Muslim League (led by Nawaz Sharif), the centrist Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (led by Imran Khan) and the smaller ethnic parties who want Pakistan to become a strong democratic federation is the most important thing for Pakistan right now.

The White House needs to come out in support this alliance and even encourage it. The stakes are just too high for the Bush administration to take any other course.

The success of liberal democracy in Pakistan will bring about a knock on effect in the rest of the Muslim world because Pakistan, with its talented population and ingenuity – not to mention the fact that it has some of the most powerful nukes in the world – is the premier Muslim majority nation in the world. The victory of democracy in Pakistan is the victory of democracy in the entire Muslim world.

For their part, Pakistani Americans, especially those who’ve formed large settlements in places like New Jersey and California, have an important role to play. They must lobby their congressmen and senators to support the people of Pakistan instead of Musharraf and his henchmen. They must get the US government to intervene positively to bring about a regime change peacefuly by strengthening Pakistan’s pro-democacy alliance and supporting it.

The battle against global terrorism will be fought and won by the people of Pakistan. You can choose to accept this reality right now or you may be forced to accept it when enough of us have perished at the hands of anti-people military regime.

Hello world!

Here is a short introduction.  I am Yasser Latif Hamdani based in Islamabad Pakistan.