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