Adil Najam
The judiciary issue remains an irritant to the mainstream political forces in Pakistan - including not just the current establishment but the current opposition forces struggling to become part of the new establishment.
The announcement from Asif Ali Zardari and Nawaz Sharif that they intend to restore the judiciary within 30 days of the formation of the parliament is good news. But given the constitutional shenanigans that we have all become used to it remains unclear (a) whether they will be ‘allowed’ to do so, and (b) if so just what form a ‘restoration’ might take.
More importantly, this announcement is a recognition of the political reality that the judiciary issue has become. Thanks, in part, to the tenacity and sagacity of Aitzaz Ahsan - who has not emerged as the key leader not only of the “Justice Movement” but of a larger civil society rising - the issue not only survives, but thrives. It never really was just about the Chief Justice, and is now clearly about much more - especially including the independence of the judiciary as an institution, about the rule of law, and about the sanctity of the constitution.
The call for the Lawyer’s Black Flag Week comes from Aitizaz Ahsan in his capacity as the President of the Supreme Court Bar Association, but it is clearly a call that he makes in his stature as a now national leader of a national civil movement. It is a passionate call. A well-worded call. A heart-felt call. A non-partisan call. A call to support constitutionalism. A call that asks no one to break the law, but everyone to register their calling. It is a call that is compelling.
We have admired Aitizaz’s political acumen as well as his poetic instincts in previous posts. He rises above the fray once again in how he words this call for “Black Flag Week.”
I think the lawyers movement is a truly democratic movement and it makes all of us Pakistanis proud.
Musharraf supporters really hate the people of Pakistan. Read their comments, and every comment will tell you how people of Pakistan cannot be trusted. Unlike Musharraf and his supporters, I am proud of the people of Pakistan and these lawyers demanding democracy.
Lahore is hit again.
Free Media In the Most corrupt Country is not Free Media its sold Media
Atzaz Hasan who is playing with the emotions of the people of Pakistan Thanks Media for supporting Lawyers Movement.Now ask the people of Pakistan that Lawyers movement is Pakistan’s top priority or the terrorism by extremists? You tell me here is the list of events since 2006 they are only increasing. Our Free Media in corrupt Pakistan is busy making happy Asif zardari and Nawaz Sharif who many belive has been funding Lawyers Movement. Don’t we need Long March on extremism not on lawyers movement let the new government take care of that. I do not want media to reply me by saying this started in Musharraf’s time. Yes I know that but what have you done to stop terrorism in Pakistan?
2006
February 5 A bomb explosion killed 13 people including three army personnel and injured 18 on a Lahore-bound bus en-route from Quetta in Kolpur, Bolan District, Balochistan. No groups claimed of responsibility for the attack.[53]
March 2 A power suicide car bomb attack in the high security zone near the US Consulate, Karachi, killed four people including a US diplomat.[54]
March 10 At least 26 people, mostly women and children, were killed in Dera Bugti District, Balochistan after their bus hit a landmine. Both tribal rebels and security forces planted land mines in the area.[55]
April 11 Over 50 people, including Sunni scholars, were killed in a bomb explosion at a religious gathering celebrating the birthday of Prophet Muhammad in Nishtar Park, Karachi.[56]
July 14 Allama Hassan Turabi, a Shiite religious scholar and chief of Tehrik-e-Jafaria Pakistan, and his 12-year-old nephew were killed in a suicide attack near his Abbas Town residence. The suicide bomber was later identified as Abdul Karim, a Bangladeshi-speaking, resident of a shantytown in the central city area of Karachi.[57]
November 8 A suicide bomber killed 42 Pakistani Army soldiers and injured 20 in the northwestern town of Dargai, apparently in retaliation to the Chenagai airstrike which killed 80 people in the same Bajaur region in the previous month.[58]
[edit] 2007
January 26 Two people were killed and five injured in a suspected suicide attack in Pakistan. The bomber and a security guard were killed in the blast at the Marriott hotel in the capital Islamabad.[59]
April 28 Assassination attempt on Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao, who is the Interior minister that killed 28 people in Charsadda, NWFP. This time again an attempt on a high ranking officer of Pakistani government was unsuccessful.[60]
May 12 As many as 50 people were killed and hundreds injured when party workers of opposing parties; MQM, ANP and PPP clash in Karachi. The riots started when rival political rallies take the same route amid lawyers protests for restoration of Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry as the Chief Justice of Supreme Court.
Main article: 2007 Karachi riots
May 15 A bomb blast at the local Marhaba hotel in Peshawar killed 24 people and injured 30.[61]
[edit] July - September
July 6 President General Pervez Musharraf escaped yet another attempt on his life on Friday morning when around 36 rounds fired at his aircraft from a submachine gun in Rawalpindi missed their target.[62] In another incident, four Pakistan Army troops, including a major and a lieutenant, were killed in an improvised explosive device attack on a military convoy in Dir District – a stronghold of the Jamaat-e-Islami and the banned Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi.[63]
July 8 Unidentified gunmen killed three Chinese workers and wounded another near Peshawar in what Pakistani officials said was a terrorist attack apparently linked to the bloody siege of militants at an Islamabad mosque.[64]
July 12 Seven people including three policemen were killed and several others injured in two suicide attacks, two blasts and a rocket attack in three tribal regions and Swat district in the NWFP.[65]
July 13 Assailants in Miranshah killed three pro-government tribal leaders, when they were spotted in the city market.[66]
July 14 At least 23 paramilitary troops died and 27 others injured when a suicide bomber rammed an explosives-packed car into their convoy in Miranshah in one of the deadliest attacks on the security forces in North Waziristan.[67]
July 15 At least 49 are killed and hundreds injured when suicide attack and car bombs explode throughout NWFP in an apparent retaliation for Lal Masjid operation. 11 security personnel and six civilians were killed and 47 others injured in Matta, Swat District, when suicide bombers smashed two cars packed with explosives into an army convoy, and 25 people were killed and 61 injured when a suicide bomber blew himself up in the Dera Ismail Khan police recruitment center.[68]
July 17 At least 17 people were killed and 50 injured as a suicide bomber blew himself up outside the venue of the district bar council convention in Islamabad killing mostly Pakistan Peoples Party political workers waiting for the arrival of Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, who was to address a lawyers convention.[69]
July 19 More than 40 people were killed in three separate bomb attacks. In the first incident, bomb was detonated in a mosque used by military personnel in the north-western town of Kohat, killing at least 11 people. In the second one, 26 people died and 50 were injured in the southern town of Hub, Lasbela District, Balochistan, in an attack apparently targeting Chinese workers. And in the last one, at least seven people were killed and more than 20 injured in a suicide car bombing at a police academy in the north-western town of Hangu.[70]
July 24 At least nine people including a woman were killed and 40 others injured when unidentified militants fired a barrage of rockets on the civilian population in the northwestern city of Bannu.[71]
July 27 A suspected suicide bomber killed at least 13 people at Muzaffar hotel in Aabpara, Islamabad Friday after hundreds of stone-throwing protesters clashed with police as the capital’s Red Mosque reopened for the first time since a bloody army raid.[72] The same day Raziq Bugti, former guerrilla commander turned spokesman for the Balochistan government, was shot dead by assailants in Quetta.[73]
August 2 The police in Sargodha shot dead a suspected suicide bomber after the man failed to detonate the explosives he was wearing. The man, who entered a police training center, killed a policeman before he was gunned down.[74]
August 4 Nine people were killed and 43 injured when a suicide car bomber triggered an explosion at a busy bus station in Parachinar, Kurram Agency.[75]
August 15 Two people were killed in a blast at around 9:00am at Saleem Tuition Center in Turlandi, about 30 kilometers from the city of Swabi, NWFP.[76]
August 26 Four policemen were killed and two others wounded in a suicide attack in the Machaar area of Shangla district.[77]
September 4 At least 25 people were killed and 66 injured in two suicide bomb blasts in Rawalpindi cantonment’s high security areas during morning rush hour. The first blast took place near Qasim Market where a Defence Ministry bus carrying around 38 civilians and uniformed officials was hit, killing 18 people. Five minutes later, a second blast took place near RA Bazaar, behind General Headquarters. The blast was caused by explosives fixed to a motorcycle, which blew up killing seven people on the spot.[78]
Main article: September 2007 bombings in Rawalpindi
September 7 Suspected militants on Friday blew up 63 CD and shoe shops in the town of Mingora in Swat District.[79]
September 11 At least 17 people, including three security personnel and a woman, were killed and 16 others injured when a 15-year-old suicide bomber blew himself up in a passenger van at Bannu Adda in Dera Ismail Khan district.[80] The same day Omar Ayub Khan’s protocol officer, Liaquat Hussain, was found shot dead near the Northern Bypass in Karachi.[81]
September 13 At least 20 off-duty commandos were killed and 11 injured in an apparent suicide blast at an army officers’ mess in Tarbela Ghazi, Haripur near Tarbela Dam. The targeted were the Pakistan Army’s special forces unit SSG’s Karar Company.[82]
September 15 Unidentified assailants shot dead Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam leader and Wafaqul Madaris Vice Chairman Maulana Hassan Jan in the jurisdiction of Yakatoot police station in Peshawar. Hassan, a former MNA, also issued a fatwa against suicide attacks, and he along with a group of Pakistani clerics traveled to Afghanistan in 2001 to convince Mullah Omar that he should expel Osama Bin Laden from Afghanistan to avoid American attacks.[83]
September 17 Militants blew up a welfare hospital in Mian Mandi bazaar, 10 kilometres northwest of the agency headquarters in Mohmand Agency. Sources said that two explosions were heard at around 2am when the Al Sehat Welfare Hospital building collapsed.[84]
[edit] October - December
October 1 A suicide bomber disguised in a woman’s burqa blew himself up at a busy police checkpost in Bannu, NWFP killing at least 16 people including four policemen and injuring 29.[85]
October 9 A time bomb exploded at Nishtarabad CD-market injuring at least 16 people in Peshawar.[86]
October 12 Mohmand Taliban publicly behead six “criminals” and lashed three others in the name of Sharia.[87]
October 18 Attack on Benazir Bhutto convoy killed over 139 in Karachi and sleft more than 450 injured in one of the most deadliest terrorist attacks in Pakistan. Former PM Benazir Bhutto was returning after 8 years of self imposed exile when the bomber struck the convoy killing dozens. Karachi Bombs in Pictures
Main article: 2007 Karachi bombing
October 20 At least eight people were killed and 28 injured when a powerful bomb planted in a pickup vehicle exploded in Dera Bugti, Balochistan.[88]
October 25 At least 20 people including 18 troops died and 35 others were injured in a blast aimed at a vehicle carrying Frontier Constabulary (FC) personnel in the troubled Swat district. It was suspected to be a suicide attack.[89]
October 30 A suicide bomber struck a police checkpoint in the high security zone of Rawalpindi, less than a kilometer from President General Pervez Musharraf’s camp office, killing seven people, three of them policemen, and injuring 31 others. The blast splattered check post of General Tariq Majid, current Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff’s residence.[90]
November 1 A suicide bomber rammed his motorcycle into a PAF bus near Sargodha, killing seven officers of the Pakistan Air Force stationed at Mushaf Airbase and three civilians on the Faisalabad Road on Thursday morning. 28 people suffered injuries. It is significant that after this event a state of emergency was imposed on the country.[91]
November 9 A suicide bomber killed at least three people and injured two others when he detonated explosives at the house of Federal Political Affairs Minister Amir Muqam in Peshawar. The minister was unhurt, but a cousin of his was injured. The three dead were policemen guarding the house.[92]
November 17-19 As many as 94 people were killed and 168 injured in three days of in-fighting between the rival Sunni and Shia sects in Parachinar, Kurram Agency in Pakistani tribal areas, bordering Afghanistan. Only by the fourth day, the army gained control of the area and a ceasefire was maintained in the area.[93]
November 24 30 people were killed in two suicide attacks in Rawalpindi. In the first incident, a suicide bomber rammed his car into a 72-seater bus parked in front of Ojhri Camp on Murree Road carrying Inter-Services Intelligence officials to work, killing 28 officials and a bystander. The second incident occurred as a second suicide bomber attempted to enter the General Headquarters (GHQ). Upon being asked for identification at the GHQ’s check post, he blew himself up, resulting in the deaths of one security official and a bystander.[94]
December 9 At least 10 people including three policemen and seven civilians, including two children, perished in a car bombing near Matta, Swat District.[95]
December 10 A suicide attack on the school bus carrying children during the morning rush injuring seven of them. It was a PAF employees bus and the attack took place near Minhas Airbase, Kamra. It was a second major attack on the Pakistan Air Force after the Sargodha attack.[96]
December 13 Two suicide bombings near an army checkpost in Quetta killed seven people, including three personnel of the Pakistan Army.[97]
December 15 A suicide attacker rammed his explosives-laden bicycle into a military checkpost killing five people and injuring 11 others in the first-ever suicide attack in the city of Nowshera. The attack occurred at a checkpoint near the gate of an army school.[98]
December 17 12 security personnel were killed and five wounded in a suicide attack in the country’s restive northwestern city of Kohat. Victims were members of army’s local football team.[99]
December 21 On the eve of Eid ul-Adha, a suicide bomb blast again targeted Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao killing at least 57 and injuring over 100 at Jamia Masjid Sherpao, in Charsadda District. Aftab Ahmad survived the blast, but his younger son Mustafa Khan Sherpao, was injured.[100]
December 23 At least seven people, including a soldier and six civilians, were killed and another 23 wounded as a suicide bomber targeted an army convoy near Mingora.[101]
December 27: Two-time Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto is assassinated in a shooting and suicide bombing in Rawalpindi’s Liaquat Bagh, killing up to 20 others and injuring many. The site is notorious as the place where former Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan was also assassinated in October 1951.
Main article: Assassination of Benazir Bhutto
December 28 At least 33 people, including four policemen, were killed all over Pakistan in the violence that ensued after the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto. The situation grew so worse that Sindh Rangers were given orders to shoot-at-sight.[102]
December 28 A roadside bomb killed nine people, including former PML-Q minister Asfandyar Amirzaib, who is a grandson of Wali-e-Swat, in Swat District.[103]
[edit] 2008
January 10 24 people were killed and 73 injured in a suicide attack when the policemen were deliberately targeted outside Lahore High Court before the scheduled lawyer’s protest against the government in provincial capital of Lahore. This attack was first of its kind in Lahore since the start of War on Terrorism.[104]
January 14 At least 10 people were killed and over 50 wounded when a bomb exploded in Quaidabad. The bomb was planted on a bicycle and it went off during wee hours in a vegetable market in Karachi.[105]
January 17 At least 12 people were killed and 25 others injured, three of them critically, when a suicide bomber blew himself up in an imambargah in Peshawar.[106]
February 4 At least 10 people were killed and 27 others injured, when a suicide bomber crashed his bike into an armed forces bus carrying students and officials of Army Medical College, near the General Headquarters in Rawalpindi.[107]
February 9 At least 25 people died and 35 were injured after a powerful explosion hit an opposition election rally in Charsadda in the north-western Pakistan. The attack targeted ANP, a secular party, one of whose leaders, Fazal-ur-Rehman Atakhail, was assassinated February 7 in Karachi triggering widespread protests. Possible conspirators of the latest attack could be the Islamist Taliban-al-Qaeda nexus operating in the northwestern Pakistan.[108]
Main article: 2008 Charsadda bombing
February 11 A suicide attack on a public meeting in Miranshah, North Waziristan left at least eight people dead and a dozen wounded, including a candidate for the National Assembly. It was the second attack on ANP’s election gathering in two days.[109]
February 16 A suicide bomber rammed his explosive-laden vehicle on the election meeting of Pakistan Peoples Party, the party of the slain former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in Parachinar, Kurram Agency in northwestern Pakistan. The attack left at least 47 people dead and 150 injured according to Interior Ministry of Pakistan. It was the fourth such attack on PPP’s political workers within a year; two of them targeting the former PPP leader Benazir Bhutto.[110]
Main article: 2008 Parachinar bombing
February 18 At least 24 people were killed and nearly 200 were injured in election-related violence across the country on the eve of Pakistani general election, Aaj TV reported.[111]
February 22 A roadside bomb near the town of Matta, Swat District, NWFP killed at least 13 members of a wedding party and left about a dozen injured. An army spokesman said the bomb had been detonated by remote control. Women and children were among the casualties.[112]
February 25 Pakistan Army’s top medic Lt Gen Mushtaq Baig was killed, along with the driver and security guard, when a suicide attack ripped apart the vehicle he was traveling in at 2:45pm local time near Army General Headquarters in Rawalpindi. At least 5 other passersby were also killed and 20 injured in the incident. Gen Baig was the highest ranking officer to be killed in Pakistan since the 9/11 attacks.[113]
February 29 As many as 38 people were killed and 75 injured when a suicide bomber blew himself up in Mingora, Swat District on Friday during the funeral of a senior police officer who had been killed hours earlier in Lakki Marwat in southern part of NWFP. The police DSP was killed along with three other policemen when their vehicle was hit in a roadside bomb earlier in the day. Witnesses said the suicide attack took place when a police party was presenting a gun salute in honor of the slain police officer in a school ground in Mingora town at about 8pm.[114]
March 2 At least 42 people were killed and 58 injured in a suicide attack, when the bomber struck the meeting of tribal elders and local officials in the town of Darra Adam Khel, a few miles south of Peshawar. The town of Darra was the center of violent clashes earlier in January when the militants took over the Kohat Tunnel that connected Peshawar with Kohat. After the onslaught of security forces to take back the tunnel, the fighting resulted in the deaths of 13 troops and 70 militants.[115]
March 4 Eight persons were killed and 24 others injured when two suicide bombers blew themselves up in the parking area of the Pakistan Navy War College located in the city of Lahore. It was the first time a Pakistani naval institution was targeted by the militants (Army has been targeted at least eight times outside the war zone and Air Force twice) since the ongoing War on Terrorism in Pakistan in general and post-Lal Masjid siege in particular. This attack on War College was carried out by two suicide attackers, the first one to clear the way for the second one; and the second one to do the damage.[116]
March 11 At least 24 people were killed and more than 200 wounded in twin suicide bombings in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore. One of the attacks ripped apart Federal Investigation Agency building killing 21, including 16 policemen. The other one hit the posh locality of Model Town, exploding close to Bilawal House, associated with PPP leaders Benazir Bhutto and her husband Asif Ali Zardari.[117]
I dont know how the big names like Mr. Etizaz (my favourite man) etc etc are asking for return of CJ Chowdhary Iftikar.
In one hand they accept CJ who also oath under emergency and in the other hand they dont accept the judges who oath under the 2nd. emergency. why?
either you accept the both emergencies or nothing. And go back to the judges who were in action before the two emergencies , in my opinion this is the correct decision or the 2nd emgerncy oath judges also legaly. you decide…..
should we cry or laugh. we will have mr. 10 percent destroy the economy that Shaukat Aziz built and then Nawaz will stab him in the back and come with 2/3 mandate. and the cycle will repeat. luddi hai jamalo, pao luddi ……….
I knew this is going to happen. The most deserving candidate for the post of PM (Amin Fahim) has been thrown out by Zardar with the help of Nawaz Sharif (as his party vetoes the decision, so that AminFahim should not be considered for premiership), In return, Zardari agreed to make the government with PML-N and restore the judges and let NS take revenge from a person who kicked him out of the country.
What’s next??? Mr.10%, the Prime Minister of Pakistan???
Pakistan ka Allah hi Hafiz, thats why I think something that maybe we deserve these corrupt politicians.
Jaisay Awam, Waisay Hukmaran.
Father of this nation had, in unequivocal terms not once but on many occasions, declared that the military will remain subservient to the civilian government in Pakistan. Unfortunately, right the opposite had been the case no sooner The Quaid closed his eyes. Once again, we have the opportunity to throw up a civilian dispensation, however incompetent and or currupt, let them do their job. Let the judiciary be indpendent and impartial, let the freedom of expression via the meadia or otherwise with responsibity, prevail. Let the Constitution work which has sufficient remedy to rectify the wrong doings, if any, of the government in power. There is no need of any un-authorised third umpire to intervene. The lawyers movement for the restoration and independence of judiciary, rule of law and justice is the only way federation can remain united. God bless our country.
Aitizaz Ahsan and his principle stand makes all of us proud to be Paksitan
Support Justice movement!
Black Flag Week Zindabad!