Wednesday, March 11, 2009

What do you call 300 jailed Pakistani lawyers?

The slowly evolving question would seem to be "does Pakistan have a future that doesn't end in tears and/or radioactive fallout?" The news coming out of Islamabad isn't reassuring. The govenrment, while agreeing to participate in monthly meetings with the Iranian and Afghani governments to discuss regional issues, is actively arresting would-be participants in a Million Pakistani March on that nation's capital. The contestants in this particular hair-tugging contest are the U.S.-backed but unpopular government led by President Asif Ali Zardari, and the slightly more popular opposition led by Nawaz Sharif. it comes down to a struggle over the fate of judges ousted by former President Pervez Musharraf. The opposition wants them reinstated. The government is invoking a legal remnant of the British Empire, Section 144 of the 1860 Penal Code, that prohibits the gathering of more than four people in public (which is probably more liberal than some interpretations of Shari'a law which would likely dictate that those four may only be male) and the arrestees include a bunch of Punjabi lawyers and a cricket captain. With Pakistan continuing it's implosion by inches, the question that remains is what will be left when that implosion reaches the Indian border.

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