Bhutto's protest hopes crumble
A public protest by Pakistan’s former premier Benazir Bhutto against emergency rule was stamped out before it could start by riot police today.
Ms Bhutto, who had called for thousands of supporters to join a public rally, was prevented from leaving her home by roadblocks.
And the few hundred people who did manage to make it to the planned meeting point were met with batons, tear gas and arrests.
Ms Bhutto, who was under house arrest at her Islamabad home, twice tried to leave for the demonstration in nearby Rawalpindi.
After being turned back a second time, her way blocked by an armoured vehicle, she got out of her car and joined her supporters, then delivered an address across the barricades.
“I want to tell you to have courage because this battle is against dictatorship and it will be won by the people,” she told her followers.
In Rawalpindi hundreds of police kept a tight grip on the largely empty streets and moved quickly against any hint of protest.
There were repeated clashes between stone-throwing protesters, who set piles of garbage and tyres on fire, and police, who fired tear gas shells from an armoured personnel carrier.
Interior Ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema claimed the authorities had stopped the rally because suicide bombers had gathered in Rawalpindi and Islamabad.
The crackdown showed that President Pervez Musharraf, who suspended the constitution and declared emergency rule on Saturday, was not letting up on his political rivals.
Speaking by phone between her two attempts to escape her home, Ms Bhutto said her supporters would “continue to fight for democracy and the rule of law.” She also repeated demands that gen Musharraf step down as army chief by next week, when his presidential term expires.
Ms Bhutto’s decision to join in anti-government protests is another blow to the military leader whose popularity has plummeted this year amid growing resentment of military rule and failure by his government to curb Taliban and al Qaida militants.
Most of the thousands of people arrested across the country since the weekend have been moderates, lawyers and activists from secular opposition parties, such as Ms Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party.
The mass detentions have fuelled criticism that gen Musharraf declared the emergency to maintain his own grip on power.
Meanwhile a suicide bombing at the home of a government minister in the north-western city of Peshawar killed four people. Minister for Political Affairs Amir Muqam was unhurt.
