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Judge Chaudhry to be reinstated by verdict Supreme Court
Pakistan’s Supreme Court has ruled that Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry should be reinstated. He was suspended in March on the orders of President Pervez Musharraf, after being accused of misusing his office for personal gain.
The Supreme Court judges ruled by 10 to three to reinstate him, and quashed all charges against him. The BBC’s Dan Isaacs in Islamabad says jubilant supporters of the judge are celebrating victory on the steps of the Supreme Court.
Observers say the ruling will be a major blow to the president, who has faced mounting opposition to his rule and a wave of bombings around the country in recent days.
Opposition activists shout anti-Musharraf slogans
during a protest rally in Lahore. (AFP)
cont’d …
Mr Chaudhry’s suspension in March triggered mass protests.
Mr Chaudhry has become the focus of opposition to the president, addressing rallies around the country. His supporters say the suspension was an attempt to undermine the judiciary’s independence in an election year. He has become a highly controversial figure in recent months as he has toured the country calling for an end to political interference in the judiciary
The legal issues are highly complex, our correspondent says, but what is at stake is fundamental – will Gen Musharraf be able to stay on as army chief as well as president, and will his re-election be decided by the current or next parliament?
Lawyers protest suspension of Chief Judge Chaudhry
(BBC News) – The controversial Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) that is the focus of a bloody confrontation between Pakistani security forces and radical clerics and students is located near the centre of the capital, Islamabad. A religious school for women, the Jamia Hafsa madrassa, is attached to the mosque. A male madrassa is a few minutes drive away.
Throughout most of its existence, the mosque has long been favoured by the city elite, including prime ministers, army chiefs and presidents.
Pakistan’s longest-ruling dictator, General Zia-ul-Haq, was said to be very close to the former head of the Lal Masjid, Maulana Abdullah, who was famous for his speeches on jihad (holy war). This was during the 1980s when the mujahideen’s fight against Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was at its peak, and jihad was seen as an acceptable clarion call in the Muslim world.
The mosque is located near the headquarters of Pakistan’s shadowy ISI intelligence service, which helped train and fund the holy warriors, and a number of ISI staff are said to go there for prayers.
Red Mosque stormed by Pakistani troops
Radical students sit outside the Red Mosque
after surrendering themselves. (AFP/Getty Images)
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What will it take for US citizens to march in protest to uphold the Constitution and an independent Judiciary?
We don’t need to wait on Congress!
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."There are too many “Good Germans” among us who can’t be bothered to worry their beautiful minds over the power grab by the Bush administration.
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(IHT) July 20 – The United States has been criticized by European allies and others around the world over interrogation techniques such as “waterboarding,” in which prisoners are strapped to a plank over water and are made to fear that they may be drowned. Critics also have complained that the CIA has run secret prisons on European soil and mistreated prisoners during clandestine flights in and out of Europe.
Bush has repeatedly said that the United States does not practice torture but has not spelled out specific banned procedures.
Leonard Rubenstein, director of Physicians for Human Rights, said the executive order was inadequate.
“What is needed now is repudiation of brutal and cruel interrogation methods. General statements like this are inadequate, particularly after years of evidence that torture was authorized at the highest levels and utilized by U.S. forces.”
The White House did not detail what types of interrogation procedures would be allowed. But it did offer parameters, saying any conditions of confinement and interrogation practices could not include:
● Torture or other acts of violence serious enough to be considered comparable to murder, torture, mutilation and cruel or inhuman treatment.
● Willful or outrageous acts of personal abuse done to humiliate or degrade someone in a way so serious that any reasonable person would “deem the acts to be beyond the bounds of human decency, such as sexual or sexually indecent acts undertaken for the purpose of humiliation, forcing the individual to perform sexual acts or to pose sexually, threatening the individual with sexual mutilation.
● Acts intended to denigrate the religion, religious practices, or religious objects of an individual.
The order also says that detainees must receive basic necessities, including adequate food and water, shelter from the elements, necessary clothing, protection from extreme heat and cold and essential medical care.
The executive order has been months in the making, with some in the CIA increasingly eager to get the rules of the road laid out. Asked if one of the agency’s most extreme techniques — waterboarding — would be allowed, a senior intelligence official declined to provide any specifics. But, the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity about the order, said: “It would be wrong to assume the program of the past transfers to the future.”
While the order did not provide many specifics, CIA Director Michael Hayden asked the Justice Department to prepare a legal opinion on techniques the agency can use, and the CIA has prepared guidance to its operatives in the field, according to the senior official.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."