Boilerplate News For New World Order - Day Four
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Everywhere, The Press Is Now Ready. Are You?------- Lawyers Angered as Hope for Change Faded
-------, -------, Nov. 7 — Behind the public rage of -------’s lawyers, who protested for a second day on Tuesday, lies a long-smoldering resentment toward the country’s ------- president, who at first held out promise for educated, politically moderate -------, but steadily squandered their support.
That disappointment turned to fury after the President, ------- -------, abolished the Supreme Court and scrapped the Constitution, touching a raw nerve among -------’s lawyers, some with degrees from the best universities abroad and with experience in how other societies had preserved legal rights.
On Tuesday in a telephone address to lawyers here in -------’s capital, the ousted chief justice of the Supreme Court, ------- -------, urged them to continue to defy the state of emergency.
Hundreds of lawyers took to the streets again in the eastern city of ------- and in -------, about 200 miles to the southwest of -------. The police arrested scores of protesters, and more than 100 lawyers were injured in street battles.
In interviews on Tuesday, a day after hundreds were tear-gassed, beaten and rounded up by the police, the lawyers said they had taken to the streets because they felt that -------’s first taste of judicial independence was being snatched away.
“How do you function as a lawyer when the law is what the ------- says it is?” said a prominent ------- lawyer, ------- -------, who has a Harvard law degree.
------- -------, who holds a master’s degree in law from Cambridge and was in President -------’s cabinet during the first two years of his rule, said lawyers were outraged that the ------- was moving backward.
“When the Supreme Court started acting like an independent institution for the first time in 60 years, they came down very hard,” he said. “In the past, the Supreme Court had always connived with the establishment and the military.”
That once cozy relationship frayed as the court, led by Mr. -------, gradually began challenging President ------- on cases ranging from human rights to his election’s validity. President ------- suspended the chief justice in March, accusing him of corruption, but lawyers around the country protested.
Their demonstrations became a rallying point for a broader weariness among ------- after seven and a half years of ------- rule. The ------- eventually had to back down, and Mr. ------- was reinstated in July.
But as the court continued to thwart President -------, he cracked down and on Saturday declared a state of emergency, accusing the court of meddling in the affairs of state and “demoralizing” public servants.
In fact, lawyers said in interviews, the court was doing its job, and it was President ------- who had retreated into the old ways of -------.
Mr. -------, the former cabinet member, said their expectations of change had been dashed. “All these people are professionals, who have never been out on the streets before,” he said of the roughly 50 people arrested at the Human Rights Commission of -------, in -------, when the police raided it on Sunday.
In fact, when President ------- first seized power in a ------- coup in 1999, unseating ------- -------, he was welcomed by ------- fed up with years of corrupt and dysfunctional civilian rule.
Mr. ------- was among those early supporters. “Initially, President ------- gave the impression, through speaking of reforms, that he meant business,” Mr. ------- said. “He was going to do something that had never happened before 1999: people from the ruling class would be held accountable for whatever they did.”
But he recounted his gradual disenchantment on a range of issues — not only strictly legal issues — after joining the President ------- government.
Things began to turn sour quickly, particularly after President ------- organized a referendum in the spring of 2002 in an attempt to legitimize his rule, Mr. ------- said.
By then, it was clear, he said, that the President was keeping the opposition political parties headed by two former ------- -------, ------- ------- and Mr. -------, out of the political arena.
“That vacuum was filled by the religious forces,” Mr. ------- said. “Now President ------- is targeting the liberal forces of this country. Yet they are the ones who want to fight extremism.”
The lawyers have been the only force in the country to mount protests since Saturday night. The political parties have remained notably subdued.
Ms. -------, leader of the country’s largest opposition party, returned to ------- in October after living abroad for eight years to avoid corruption charges. She was hoping to find a way to share power with President -------, her old nemesis.
Though that deal looks increasingly unlikely, she has yet to authorize the organization of rallies against the emergency decree. She returned to the capital on Tuesday night, but has so far confined herself to statements condemning the President’s move.
Instead, it is the lawyers who have taken the lead in staging protests. The day after President ------- imposed emergency rule, people who supported the ------- eight years ago were so furious that they demonstrated outside the Marriott Hotel in -------, Mr. ------- said.
An estimated 700 lawyers, maybe more, are now in jail, lawyers say. Some top corporate lawyers have been arrested, like ------- -------, who among those jailed Sunday in the raid on the human rights commission.
Other top lawyers have stayed out of trouble, choosing to monitor events from their offices, or in some cases, like Mr. -------, hiding from the authorities at friends’ houses as they plan strategy for protests and long-term boycotts of the courts.
The country’s most visible lawyer, ------- -------, the leader of the campaign to support Chief Justice ------- in the spring, was hastily put into prison in -------, a major city adjacent to -------, on Saturday night.
Mr. ------- is regarded by many of his colleagues as a virtuoso orator, talented lawyer and a clever politician who is probably best able to maintain the momentum of the lawyers’ movement, a fact the President -------'s government well knows.
A lawyer for Mr. -------, ------- -------, said he went Tuesday to the jail where Mr. ------- was being held, but was denied access to see Mr. ------- even though he carried written permission from the authorities.
While the lawyers say their immediate cause is the preservation of -------’s legal system, and their own profession, they said they have also been spurred on by more wide-ranging frustrations.
Mr. -------, the ------- lawyer, said he was disappointed that Washington was not trying to forge “a liberal alliance” in -------. Ms. -------, who has returned to ------- with encouragement from the ------- administration, was calling for elections, but had ignored the vital issue of a viable and independent judiciary, he said.
“Three years down the line when the ------- government is discredited, there will be an extreme right-wing government with the kind of political agenda that is openly hostile to the ------- -------,” Mr. ------- warned.
Several other prominent lawyers said they were discouraged by what they saw as the mild reaction of the ------- administration to the dismissal of the Supreme Court.
“Expressions from the ------- are taken seriously here, and I feel the ------- ought to put its foot down regardless of the consequences to President -------,” said ------- -------, a corporate lawyer, whose firm had represented President ------- on some cases.
Mr. -------, whose family comes from the ------- ------- in the North-West ------- -------, where religious extremists have seized power, said it was unrealistic to expect ------- to cut military assistance.
But, he said, “there ought to be a greater vigilance and the strings should be stronger, so we know how the money is spent and who the beneficiaries are.”
From inside President -------'s government, Mr. ------- said, he had watched a steady erosion of the President’s reform agenda.
President ------- abetted the religious parties, weakened legislation on the rights of women, and withdrew a proposal on blasphemy that had offended ------- fundamentalists.
At the same time, he allowed extremism to spread in the tribal areas on the border with Afghanistan, even though he was telling the ------- that quelling extremism was his top priority, Mr. ------- said.
After President ------- suspended the chief justice in March, Mr. ------- said he warned one of the president’s most trusted aides, ------- -------, the head of the National Security Council, that the President had lost his base of popular support.
Mr. ------- said: “I told him: ‘Don’t believe any of the reports from the intelligence agencies. Go and disguise yourself and see if you can find a single person who is not angry at President -------.’”
He added: “His reply was that he should leave if he’s so unpopular. I said: ‘That’s for you to tell him.’”
NOTE: Today's version of this news story is here. In what country will the next version of this story take place? The United States?
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