Pakistan's emergency rule doesn't really seem anti-terrorism by Corina Ciubotaru

Just days before his rule as a General would have been over, Pervez Musharraf took a sudden decision to throw Pakistan into emergency rule and force the U.S. and the U.K. to reconsider giving the country further financial aid. It's been a country permanently on the front pages after the attack on former PM Benazir Bhutto led to over 140 deaths and the current political crisis turns it into another hot topic. Billions of dollars have been pumped into it since its leader sided with the Americans after the 9/11 attacks and thus became one of President Bush's primary anti-terrorist ally in the region. Now, the funds scheduled to be sent are about to be stopped and Musharraf is urged to reconsider his stand in the political world because in Western eyes, the arrest of 500 activists in 24 hours looks a lot like terrorism. And cutting off telephone lines and TV stations other than the state-owned one doesn't sound much like democracy either. General Musharraf also changed the Constitution as he enforced emergency rule, which, according to some of his colleagues, should not be considered martial law, and has replaced the chief justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, considered to be the man who would declare his win of the last elections a fraud. Hearings on this matter, scheduled for next week, have been postponed indefinitely and parliamentary elections have been delayed by at least a month. Although the official stance is that the emergency rule was imposed to fight Muslim terrorism, most believe it is all about stopping the court from ruling against him.

related story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071104/ap_on_re_as/pakistan;_ylt=Avl3AXh1L_mJyb5f1RM3lvys0NUE

by Corina Ciubotaru for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

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