NATIONWIDE PROTESTS FOLLOW CHIEF JUSTICE'S

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 02 ISLAMABAD 001176

SIPDIS

NOFORN
SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/13/2017
TAGS: PK PREL PGOV
SUBJECT: NATIONWIDE PROTESTS FOLLOW CHIEF JUSTICE'S
SUSPENSION

REF: A. ISLAMABAD 01124


B. ISLAMABAD 637

Classified By: Ryan C. Crocker, Reasons 1.4 (b) and(d)


1. (C) Summary. President Musharraf's March 9 suspension of
Supreme Court Chief Justice Ifthikar Chaudhry has ignited the
ire of Pakistan,s legal community and consumed the attention
of the press and intelligentsia. Hundreds -- perhaps
thousands -- of lawyers and other sympathizers protested
nationwide on March 12 and 13. The protests were the first
time in recent memory that progressives like the PPP's Aitzaz
Ahsan could be seen should-to-shoulder with leaders of the
religious parties. Legal groups and opposition parties have
called for a general strike in many cities for March 14,
while opposition parties are organizing a nationwide strike
for March 16. Some members of the ruling PML-Q and MQM
coalition tell us they are embarrassed by President
Musharraf's actions. Some of the most respected members of
the Government, including the Attorney General and the
Minister of Interior, have been noticeably silent throughout
the controversy. The March 12 decision of the government to
close two private television stations for 20 minutes after
they ran talk shows critical of the President's actions
toward the Chief Justice have only added fuel to people's
anger. End Summary.

Angry Lawyers In The Streets
--------------


2. (SBU) Pakistan's legal community, the most well-organized
unit of civil society in Pakistan, is furious about President
Musharraf's suspension of the Supreme Court Chief Justice.
On March 12, protesters in Lahore, Karachi, Islamabad, and
smaller cities blocked major thoroughfares, threw stones and
other objects at the police, and boycotted the courts. In
Lahore on March 12, protesters clashed with police, leading
to several injuries from "baton-charges". The protests
paralyzed the business district for five hours and received
widespread press attention. Demonstrations continued in
Lahore, Islamabad, and Karachi on March 13th. During the
March 13 Islamabad protests, senior opposition politicians
Qazi Hussain Ahmed (Jamaat-e Islami),Fazlur Rahman (Jamiat-e
Ulema-e Islam),and Aitzaz Ahsan (PPP),and other
representatives of civil society organizations joined the
lawyers. The MMA, PML-N, and PPP all plan large protests on
Friday.


3. (U) The Supreme Judicial Council hearing the complaint
against the Chief Justice met March 13 in closed session for
one hour and 45 minutes and then adjourned. Afterward,
Aitzaz Ahsan, who is representing the justice, told the press
he had filed a publication with the Supreme Judicial Council
objecting to its composition and to the "in camera" nature of
the proceedings.

Universal Agreement: President Handled This Badly
--------------

4. (C) Four days after the suspension, and without a
detailed explanation from the President, the rumor mill is
offering up theories of the Musharraf,s motivation that
range from his wanting a malleable court that will rule in
his favor on election-oriented questions to his being angry
over court decisions that ended his privatization plan for
Pakistan Steel. The few Musharraf supporters who have spoken
publicly in favor of the President,s actions have generally
not helped the President. Some, for instance, have cited as

ISLAMABAD 00001176 002 OF 002


an example of the Chief Justice's corruption his demand for
an armored vehicle when he visited Quetta. (Comment: An
armored vehicle for the Chief Justice of Pakistan,
particularly given recent violence against jurists, does not
seem particularly profligate. End Comment.)


5. (C) A pulse of journalists, lawyers, and politicians from
across Pakistan suggests that there is near-universal
agreement among the elites that President Musharraf
mishandled the Chief Justice's fate. PML President Chaudhry
Shujaat told Ambassador March 13 that neither he nor the
Prime Minister had been told anything about Musharraf,s plan
to suspend the justice. Minister of Health Mohammed Naseer
Khan told Ambassador that the suspension was "very bad" and
had given the opposition a "stick to whack us with." PML
leaders in Punjab told Consulate Lahore that they were
worried Musharraf's actions would reflect negatively on them.
Their sentiment was echoed by other coalition partners, who
said Musharraf's silence on the issue was handing the
opposition an opportunity to unite.


6. (C) Opposition politicians, meanwhile, criticized
Musharraf's actions as another step towards undermining
Pakistan's institutions of democracy. PML-N MNA Tehmina
Daultana told us that "Musharraf is destroying the
foundations of this country and bringing the institutions
under his foot one at a time." Liaquat Baloch, JI's Deputy
Amir, said the MMA believed Musharraf's actions were
unconstitutional and that Musharraf only suspended the Chief
Justice because he had personal motives. Others echoed the
questioning of Musharraf's personal involvement, saying that
corruption allegations against judicial and government
officials are rampant, but Musharraf normally does not
intervene.


7. (C) The one thing that lawyers and Musharraf supporters
seem to agree on is that Musharraf was technically within his
constitutional rights to suspend the justice. The problem,
most note, is optics and transparency. The President,s
intervening so personally, rather than simply referring the
charges to the Judicial Council, looks high-handed and
un-democratic. Meanwhile, the decision to place Chaudhry
under unofficial house-arrest and to deny him contact with
the outside world seems, to some contacts, petty. As MQM
Deputy Convenor Farooq Sattar told us, "to file a reference
against the sitting Justice is Musharraf's discretion, but
restricting his movements and cutting him off from visitors,
his lawyers, and his family is raising people's hackles."
(Note: Reports late on March 13 indicate that restrictions
on Chaudhry,s contacts with the outside world may have
lessened. End Note.)

Comment
--------------

8. (C) The legal community and the opposition are unlikely to
back down easily. A combination of a transparent Supreme
Judicial Council hearing, a public explanation by Musharraf,
and a tempered reaction by law enforcement officials to
protests on March 16 could cool some of the anger.
CROCKER