Black Sunday in Pakistan

Upping the ante, over 230 Opposition lawmakers have resigned from Pakistan’s National and Provincial Assemblies to resist President Pervez Musharraf’s re-election bid...

Upping the ante, over 230 Opposition lawmakers have resigned from Pakistan’s National and Provincial Assemblies to resist President Pervez Musharraf’s re-election bid, as journalists observed a ‘Black Day’ on Sunday condemning the police action during protests against the General.

Eighty-four members of the National Assembly and 152 of four Provincial Assemblies from Opposition alliance All Parties Democratic Movement (APDM) submitted their resignations to their respective party leaders, Raja Zafarul Haq, leader of Pakistan Muslim League-N, told reporters . APDM is headed by exiled former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s PML (N).

Haq said the resignations would be submitted to the Speaker of the National Assembly and respective Speakers of Provincial Assemblies on October 2, the day after Election Commission displays the final list of candidates for the October 6 presidential poll.

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Journalists all over the country marched with black flags on Sunday to protest against the tear-gas and baton-charge on mediapersons covering the protests before the Election Commission here on Saturday during the scrutiny of nominations for presidential poll.

Sixty-four people were injured, including 13 police officials, 31 journalists, two opposition lawmakers and several passers-by in the clashes, the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan news agency reported on Sunday.

The Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists decried the Government actions as “shameful”.

“What happened yesterday was shameful. It was the darkest day in Pakistan’s history,” Mushtaq Minhas, president of the Press Club here, said accusing the Government of increasing intolerance towards media.

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About 400 journalists and human right activists chanted anti-government slogans and condemned police “brutality” as they marched from a press club in Islamabad to Parliament.

Information and Broadcasting Minister Mohammad Ali Durani has condemned the police action on journalists and said the Government had ordered an inquiry into the incidents.

Similar rallies in support of press freedom were held in other cities including Karachi, Peshawar, Multan, as well as tribal areas where the army is fighting pro-Taliban militants.

Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry on Sunday ordered Islamabad’s top administration and police officials to provide explanations to the Supreme Court on Monday to explain why force was used against lawyers and journalists.

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Meanwhile, a civil judge-cum-judicial magistrate resigned against the Supreme Court’s judgment on petitions against Musharraf and resolved to join the legal fraternity in their struggle for the independence of judiciary.

Civil judge Ijaz Ahmad, who is stationed in Abbottabad in North West Frontier Province, submitted one-month’s notice to the Peshawar High Court stating that from October 29 he might be treated as having resigned. He said the Supreme Court judgment of September 28 allowing Musharraf to contest the presidential poll had demolished all that had been achieved over the past three months.

The Election Commission on Saturday approved the nomination of six candidates, including Musharraf, overruling objections by the Opposition to the General’s candidature for another term.