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Police crack down on groups protesting Musharraf’s reelection bid

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – Riot police beat protesting lawyers, threw rocks at them and fired rounds of tear gas toward the Supreme Court building in a government show of force that prevented about 300 lawyers from protesting at Pakistan’s election commission Saturday.

In an expected ruling, the election commission announced that embattled President Pervez Musharraf is eligible to run for another 5-year term next Saturday.

The lawyers had planned to protest the commission decision and a Supreme Court ruling Friday that paved the way for Musharraf’s re-election. But only a few made it past government barricades. Thousands of police were posted on and near the capital’s Constitution Avenue to prevent any significant protest.

“It’s an appalling and entirely unnecessary show of excessive force,” said Ali Dayan Hasan, South Asia researcher for Human Rights Watch, who was at the Supreme Court on Saturday. “This is an obscene display of wanton brutality. Legitimate leaders do not shell and stone the Supreme Court of a country.”

It was the government’s first use of major violence on anti-Musharraf protesters since demonstrations in March against the president’s unsuccessful attempt to suspend the country’s chief justice. It indicates Musharraf plans to handle any challenge to his rule in the six days leading up to the presidential election.

Musharraf, the Pakistani army chief who seized power in a bloodless coup in 1999, is trying to survive the biggest challenge that his regime has faced. As a key ally in the U.S. war on terror, his fate has been closely watched by the West, concerned about the fate of Pakistan, where Islamic militants train in the remote tribal areas and anti-American sentiment has been rising drastically.

Musharraf so far has successfully fought back court and public challenges to his continued rule despite constitutional hurdles for him remaining as both president and army chief. He has indicated he would step down as army chief if elected president.

Lawyers, who have galvanized anti-Musharraf sentiment more than opposition political parties, vowed to continue their struggle next week. They have nominated their own presidential candidate, a retired Supreme Court judge, and are expected to file an appeal Monday to the election commission’s decision.

“You saw what happened to the peaceful protesters – they were brutally manhandled,” said Munir Malik, president of the country’s Supreme Court Bar Association. “This was fascism in its purest form.”

The scene outside the court Saturday was like no other protest in recent months. About 300 lawyers and 50 journalists tried to move about 75 yards, from the Supreme Court to the election commission, but riot police continually pushed them back.

They fired tear gas canisters at the lawyers and chased them down, beating them. They briefly arrested Malik and hit the next president of the Supreme Court Bar Association with wooden batons and a brick. At least 50 lawyers were taken to the hospital, some in ambulances.

“They have beaten me very brutally,” said Raja Yasir, a lawyer who came back from the hospital to the protest with eight stitches in his head, blood on his white button-down shirt and a bandage around his left forearm.

At one point, when the country’s deputy minister of information arrived, he was pulled out of a vehicle and beaten by local journalists.

World

Study details sex trafficking

CHICAGO – In the Chicago area and the rest of the nation, prostitution is illegal, but it is thriving nonetheless.

A 2002 study estimated the number of prostitutes in the Chicago area to be about 16,000. The study, conducted by the Center for Impact Research, found that about a third of the prostitutes interviewed began selling themselves for money before age 15.

In recent years, Chicago has been identified by the Justice Department as one of 13 cities nationwide where the trafficking of individuals – particularly children – for the sex industry is a problem.

“We’re seeing a growing number of women being trafficked in for the sex trade industry,” said Samir Goswami of the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, which advocates for prostitutes in the city.

Goswami said in recent years he has seen a shift in law enforcement regarding prosecution of those involved in the city’s illegal sex trade. Where prostitutes were once the primary subject of arrest, numbers show an increased focus on arresting johns, or the men who are attempting to trade money for sex.

“Now about two-thirds of the arrests are the women,” he said, “while the last third are the johns.”

Illinois last year passed a law targeting those who profit from illegal prostitution. The law, the Predator Accountability Act, allows workers in the sex trade to sue people who profited from their prostitution. Goswami said his organization is in the process of helping to launch a free legal clinic that will allow women to pursue such lawsuits.

In addition, Melissa Farley, the prostitution researcher who recently released a scathing study of the Nevada industry, said her next project will examine what motivates men to pay for sex with prostitutes. One of the cities where such men will be interviewed is Chicago, she said.

Local / BSU

Canyon County towns seek to expand

Officials from four Canyon County cities will ask county commissioners to expand their towns’ areas of impact next month.

Wilder and Greenleaf leaders want their areas of impact to meet so they have more control over how their cities grow.

Parma wants to expand to the west where a residential equestrian development of about 500 acres is planned. If that development is annexed into the city, it would double the area of the city limits, Parma Mayor Margaret Watson said.

Representatives from the cities — Parma, Notus, Wilder and Greenleaf — will discuss their expansion plans Tuesday, Oct. 16. Areas of impact are sections outside a city’s limits on county land where cities expect to grow in the future.

“What we’re trying to do is for the cities to have a little bit more say in this growth that is coming out here to West Canyon County,” Wilder city clerk and treasurer Colleen Cook said.

“We’re trying to get a contiguous area we can comment on and let (the county) know what our plans are.”

If Wilder’s and Greenleaf’s areas of impact meet between the two cities, that will preclude the county from allowing developments there without input from the cities, city officials said. Cook said she did not know of any specific plans for development in the area between the cities. But Greenleaf city clerk Lee Belt said part of the area could be developed for industry.

“We’re hoping the county will let us plan for the future because that’s what an impact area is used for,” Belt said.

City officials have also hired an engineer to study the feasibility of a regional sewer system for the area to accommodate growth. Currently Notus and Wilder are at or close to capacity with their sewer systems and Greenleaf has no city-wide
system.

Meanwhile Parma officials want to expand the city’s area of impact west. But the County Planning and Zoning Commission blocked their plans to do so.

“I’m hoping that the county commissioners will override … what P and Z came up with at the last hearing,” Watson said.

The development in the planning stages west of Parma would be rural residential and low density. The equestrian subdivision would have upscale homes, riding trails, an arena and barns, Watson said.

Courtesy Idaho Press-Tribune

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MCT Campus Wire Services

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