Pak court indicts Musharraf; rejects plea to travel abroad

April 1, 2014

Indicts_MusharrafIslamabad, Apr 1: In a double whammy, former dictator Pervez Musharraf was today indicted by a court on five counts of high treason and his plea to travel abroad rejected as he became Pakistan's first ever military ruler to face criminal prosecution that entails death penalty.

Musharraf, who personally appeared in the special court for the second time since proceedings began in December, pleaded "not guilty" to all the charges against him read out by Justice Tahira Safdar of the Balochistan High Court.

The high-profile treason case against the 70-year-old former president is seen as a setback for the country's powerful army that apparently looked like moving to protect Musharraf when he was shifted to a military hospital in early January.

Musharraf is accused of treason for suspending, subverting and abrogating the Constitution, imposing an emergency in the country in November 2007 and detaining judges of superior courts.

If found guilty, he faces the death sentence or life imprisonment.

Reading out from his notes, Musharraf said that he gave 44 years of his life to the Pakistan Army and made defence invincible. He said he gave repute and progress to the country.

"I honour this court and prosecution, I strongly believe in law, I don't have ego problems and I have appeared in court 16 times in this year in Karachi, Islamabad and Rawalpindi," Musharraf said.

"I am being called a traitor, I have been chief of army staff for nine years and I have served this army for 45 years. I have fought two wars and it is treason?," he questioned.

Prosecutor Akram Sheikh in reply said he has never used the word "traitor".

Amid tight security, the three-judge bench headed by Justice Faisal Arab of the Sindh High Court read out the indictment against Musharraf.

Prior to the indictment, Farogh Naseem, a new lawyer in Musharraf's defence team, requested the court to allow the former president to travel to the UAE to meet his 95-year-old ailing mother.

Rejecting his application for seeking permission to travel abroad, the special court ruled that it did not have the powers to do so as it was functioning under a specific law.

Musharraf came to power in a bloodless coup in 1999, deposing then-prime minister Nawaz Sharif.

Musharraf, facing impeachment following elections in 2008, resigned as president and went into self-imposed exile in Dubai.

The court ruled that it did not put Musharraf's name on the Exit Control List (ECL) and a review can be done by the federal government.

Anybody whose name is on ECL cannot leave the country without permission.

The court said Musharraf is not in its custody and he is a free man.

Postponing the hearing to April 14, the court said he will have to appear before it as and when asked to do so.

However, it ruled that exemption can also be granted on specific days in case of a justifiable reason.

Security measures at the court were beefed up in anticipation of Musharraf's appearance in court, in compliance with an order issued on March 14, demanding his presence enforced or voluntary in the dock.

Musharraf was admitted to the Armed Forces Institute of Cardiology (AFIC), Rawalpindi, on January 2 after he complained of "heart problem" on his way to the court.

Following the hearing, Musharraf was rushed back to the hospital in Rawalpindi accompanied by a security convoy of dozens of vehicles and government-provided security personnel.

The military has ruled Pakistan for about half of its 66-year history and no ruler or top military commander has ever faced criminal prosecution before Musharraf.

Musharraf said the real "ghaddar" (traitor) are those who create hindrances in the country's socio-economic development and those who looted the national exchequer.

Musharraf in his defence said he had spent night with soldiers in Siachen and Kargil.

He proudly claimed to a former member of the Special Services Group whose moto was "ghazi and shaheed" (to kill or be a martyr).

He also listed out the steps that he had taken for the betterment of the country.

While commenting on the indictment of Musharraf, Cabinet Minister Ahsan Iqbal said Pakistan made another history.

"For the first time trial against a dictator brought him to face charges in court. It is a victory for all those who refused to bow against dictatorship, struggled and sacrificed to uphold the cause of rule of law in Pakistan," Iqbal said.

Iqbal, in a Facebook message, said Musharraf still showed his contempt for law and cowardice by trying to escape appearances.

"If Mush (Musharraf) had shown courage to appear on first call, he would have saved personal embarrassment and millions of rupees. But if he was so wise, why would he impose emergency in the first place," he said.

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Agencies
April 14,2020

The US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has reprimanded the Imran Khan government for denying food aid to Hindus and Christians in Pakistan amid the coronavirus pandemic and warned that it will trigger an additional crisis due to religious discrimination.

The USCIRF is an independent federal government entity set up by the US Congress to monitor and report on religious freedom in the world.

Pakistan continues to be in the tier one of the USCIRF list of the countries whose record on religious freedom remains abysmal.

In a statement issue on Monday, the USCIRF said it was troubled by the reports of food aid being denied to Hindus and Christians in Pakistan amid pandemic.

Citing one of the examples of religious discrimination, the USCIRF said that in Karachi, the Saylani Welfare International Trust, a non-government organization set up to help the homeless and seasonal workers, has been refusing food aid to Hindus and Christians and providing it only Muslims.

Describing such actions "reprehensible", the USCIRF commissioner Anurima Bhargava said: "As COVID-19 continues to spread, vulnerable communities within Pakistan are fighting hunger and to keep their families safe and healthy. Food aid must not be denied because of one's faith."
One of the USCIRF commissioners, Johnnie Moore warned that if the Khan government continued with such policies, Pakistan would add an additional crisis.

"In a recent address by Prime Minister Khan to the international community, he highlighted that the challenge facing governments in the developing world is to save people from dying of hunger while also trying to halt the spread of COVID-19. This is a monumental task laying before many countries.

"Prime Minister Khan's government has the opportunity to lead the way but they must not leave religious minorities behind. Otherwise, they may add on top of it all one more crisis, created by religious discrimination and inter-communal strife."

The organization which makes foreign policy recommendations to the US President, the Secretary of State, and Congress, urged the Pakistani government to ensure that food aid from distributing organizations is shared equally with Hindus, Christians, and other religions minorities.

Last year, in its annual report, the USCIRF had noted that Hindus and Christians in Pakistan "face continued threats to their security and are subjected to various forms of harassment and social exclusion".

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Agencies
August 1,2020

Mexico City, Aug 1: The number of people, who have died of COVID-19 in Mexico, has risen by 688 to 46,688 within the past 24 hours, Deputy Health Minister Hugo Lopez-Gatell said.

The number of victims in Mexico is now higher than in the United Kingdom, where 46,119 people have died of the disease. The largest number of fatalities - 153,311 - has been recorded in the United States, while Brazil comes second with 92,475 deaths.

Lopez-Gatell also said on late Friday that the number of confirmed coronavirus cases had increased by 8,458 to 424,637 over the past day.

A day earlier, the Latin American nation recorded 7,730 new cases of the coronavirus, with 639 fatalities.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic on March 11. To date, over 17.5 million people have been infected with the coronavirus worldwide, with over 677,000 fatalities, according to Johns Hopkins University.

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News Network
January 6,2020

Aboard Air Force One, Jan 6: US President Donald Trump threatened sanctions against Baghdad on Sunday after Iraq's parliament called on US troops to leave the country, and the president said if troops did leave, Baghdad would have to pay Washington for the cost of the air base there.

"We have a very extraordinarily expensive air base that's there. It cost billions of dollars to build, long before my time. We're not leaving unless they pay us back for it," Trump told reporters on Air Force One.

Trump said that if Iraq asked US forces to leave and it was not done on a friendly basis, "we will charge them sanctions like they've never seen before ever. It'll make Iranian sanctions look somewhat tame."

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