Pak press slams rulers over judges’ removal

Although Pakistan’s military leader General Pervez Musharraf guaranteed the freedom of the courts after his October coup, judges have been forced out, the paper said.

“Taking that as a precedent they may feel cause to fear that the press, which too was similarly promised freedom, could become the regime’s next target. And next to that could be fundamental rights. “In the event of that transpiring the regime will be branded by its critics as a totaldictatorship.”

Musharraf’s move against the judiciary would likely spark a negative fallout abroad and may challenge the regime’s claim to legitimacy, The Nation said. “The situation here already seems to be turning into aquagmire in which the more one flails around the deeper one sinks.”

Another major newspaper, the Frontier Post, also warned the press, which has run free since the coup, could be the next target. “We believe that the military government has committed its first faux pas; it should have sought another path for obtaining whatever objectives it set for itself to achieve,” the paper said. “Forcing the Chief Justice and some of his colleagues against their will, will have consequences.”

Because the previous government was so unpopular Musharraf enjoyed a honeymoon of support in the weeks after the coup. Now that is ending, the paper warned. “We fear that the military government has lost its raison d’etre. The move to stifle the independent working of the judiciary willtherefore be looked upon with disdain and disgust by the enlightened people,” it said.

Another leading newspaper, The News, which has been morel oyal to the military regime, criticised the role of the judiciary in Pakistan’s history. “The roots of Pakistan’s constitutional misfortunes, as is often remembered, lie in its weak-kneed judiciary,” the paper said. “The people are unlikely to cry over what has happened.”