International

Emergency will be lifted in a month: Attorney-General

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan announced plans to lift its state of emergency within one month. It allowed the Opposition leader Benazir Bhutto to leave her villa following a day under house arrest.

President General Pervez Musharraf insists he called the week-old emergency to help fight Islamic extremists who control swathes of territory near the Afghan border, but the main targets of his subsequent crackdown have been his most outspoken critics, including the increasingly independent courts and media.

Thousands of people have been arrested, TV news stations taken off air, and judges removed.

The government — under mounting pressure from the United States and other Western allies to follow through with promises to restore democracy — has announced that parliamentary elections initially slated for January would be held no more than a month later.

Attorney General Malik Mohammed Qayyum told The Associated Press on Saturday that the Emergency would “end within one month.” He provided no further details and would not say when a formal announcement might come.

Security forces threw a cordon around Ms. Bhutto’s villa in an upscale neighbourhood of the capital on Friday, and rounded up thousands of her supporters to prevent a planned demonstration against the crackdown. But she was allowed to leave her home 24 hours later, and vowed to go ahead with another planned rally in a few days.

Ms. Bhutto met first with party colleagues and then stopped by a small journalists’ protest in her silver, bullet-proof Land Cruiser to express concerns about new media restrictions, which impose prison terms for those who criticise Gen. Musharraf or the Army.

“We join you in your struggle,” said Ms. Bhutto, who was ringed by dozens of police commandos. The crowd responded by chanting: “We want freedom! We want freedom!” Aides said she would meet later with foreign diplomats to discuss the political crisis.

The restrictions on Ms. Bhutto dimmed the prospect of her forming a U.S.-friendly alliance with Gen. Musharraf against militants who have seized control of an ever-greater area of northwestern Pakistan. U.S. officials have expressed concern that the political crisis will actually distract Pakistan from that task. NATO said on Saturday that insurgents had killed six American troops in eastern Afghanistan about 60 km from the border with Pakistan. Ms. Bhutto, for her part, has left open the possibility of re-entering talks with Gen. Musharraf on issues including her wish to serve a third term as Prime Minister.

She said she was still determined to go ahead with a 300 km march on Tuesday from the Lahore to Islamabad.

“To free Pakistan from the clutches of dictatorship, we are organising a long march,” Ms. Bhutto said. “I request ... all segments of the population to join us in the struggle for democracy. When the masses combine, the sound of their steps will suppress the sound of military boots.”

Many critics say the main goal of Gen. Musharraf’s emergency was to pre-empt a Supreme Court ruling on the legality of his victory in a Presidential election last month. Under the constitution, public servants cannot run for office.

The Pakistan government ordered three journalists of Britain’s Daily Telegraph newspaper to leave the country within 72 hours, accusing them of using “abusive” and “foul language” against the country and its leadership. The action was taken against Isambard Wilkinson, Colin Freeman and Damien McElroy under emergency regulations, State-run PTV reported.

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