August 23, 2007
Bangladesh Imposes Curfew to Stifle Protests
By JULFIKAR ALI MANIK and SOMINI SENGUPTADHAKA, Bangladesh, Aug. 22

Shattering the calm of seven months of army-backed rule, violent clashes between students and the police led the government to impose an indefinite curfew on Wednesday night in six of the country’s largest cities, in a return of the political instability that prompted a caretaker government to take power in January.
The leader of the caretaker government, Fakhruddin Ahmed, said Wednesday in a televised address that the administration was compelled to impose the curfew and to shut colleges and universities across the country to “protect public life and property as well as stop illegal activities.” Cellphone networks were also closed down.
The strife, which posed the biggest challenge yet to the caretaker government, began over a relatively minor scuffle on Monday involving army personnel and students at Dhaka University, the country’s premier educational institution and a longtime hotbed of political activity. The scuffle led students to demand that troops on the campus be removed.
On Tuesday, protests spread, with demonstrators setting fire to a military vehicle here in the capital. In clashes around the country, at least one person was killed and several hundred, some of them police officers, were injured.
The government said that the army had already withdrawn from the Dhaka University campus and that a judicial inquiry had been opened into the initial clash that prompted the protests.
Mr. Ahmed suggested that the student protests had been exploited by others to stir political unrest. “It’s unfortunate,” he said, “that some evil forces and opportunist, unruly people created anarchy in different parts of the country, including Dhaka, capitalizing on the university incidents.”
The interim government took power in January after months of violent clashes between rival political parties. Scheduled voting was canceled, political activity was banned and the government, with backing from the army, pledged to rid the country of corrupt politicians and to prepare for elections in 2008.
Several high-ranking politicians have since been arrested, including a former prime minister, Sheik Hasina Wazed, who was charged with extortion. Her main rival, Khaleda Zia, also a former prime minister, is not in custody, but Mrs. Zia’s son Tarique Rahman is in jail on graft charges.
Julfikar Ali Manik reported from Dhaka, and Somini Sengupta from New Delhi.

Pakistan’s exiled former PM cleared to return
By Jo Johnson in New Delhi and Farhan Bokhari in Karachi
Published: August 23 2007 14:03 Last updated: August 23 2007 17:47

Pakistan’s supreme court on Thursday cleared the way for former prime minister Nawaz Sharif to return from exile, striking another severe blow to General Pervez Musharraf, the country’s embattled US-backed military ruler.
The verdict sets the stage for a potentially spectacular comeback for a politician whose career seemed to have come to an ignominious end when he was ousted by Mr Musharraf’s 1999 October coup amid widespread anger at rampant corruption.
At a press conference in London, Mr Sharif said: “This is a victory for Pakistan, victory for democracy and defeat for dictatorship. The constitution of Pakistan has won. It is a victory for the struggle of the people of Pakistan which they launched for the restoration of democracy. Today the kind of democracy we have in Pakistan is a joke.”
Claiming the decision was a defeat of Mr “Musharraf’s eight-year rule of tyranny” and a “defeat for military rule”, he said: “It’s a day of great joy for Pakistan. As Pakistan heads towards democracy, our joy will only grow. I want to return as quickly as possible.”
Mr Sharif’s supporters on Thursday danced on the streets of Lahore – his political stronghold in Punjab province – and distributed “mithai”, a dessert traditionally handed out among neighbours during street celebrations.
The ruling paves the way for Mr Sharif to return to Pakistan to lead his centre-right party, the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), into parliamentary and provincial assembly elections due to be held between November and February.
It comes on the heels of another major legal setback to Mr Musharraf, who only last month saw his summary suspension of the country’s chief justice, Iftikhar Chaudhry, embarrassingly reversed by the supreme court.
The decision also underlines the pivotal role to be played by the supreme court in coming weeks when it is expected to rule on constitutional challenges to Mr Musharraf’s plans to have himself re-elected president while still in uniform.
Mr Musharraf exiled Mr Sharif in 2000, saying he had given him a conditional pardon for his role in the ”hijacking” of the army chief’s aircraft in October 1999 provided he stayed out of Pakistan for 10 years and refrained from all political activity.
Mr Sharif maintained that the agreement was signed under duress and could not be legally binding in a Pakistani court. He accused the government of ”blackmailing and threatening” him with ”fake” documents.
The court has yet to release a detailed judgment, but it stipulated that Mr Sharif cannot be deported if he tries to return, as happened to his brother Shahbaz, who was unceremoniously expelled from Pakistan when he flew to Lahore in May 2004.
Mr Sharif’s party performed poorly in the last elections, in 2002, when it finished in fourth place, in large part because many of its leaders had been lured away by Mr Musharraf and because the Sharif brothers were not allowed to campaign.
Analysts believe the party is likely to benefit from its uncompromising stance at a time when the public mood has turned sharply against Mr Musharraf and politicians willing to be co-opted into the military-backed government.
Mr Sharif hopes to capitalise on the perception that Benazir Bhutto, leader of the Pakistan People’s party, has sold out by holding long-running negotiations with the military ruler over a possible power-sharing agreement.
Although Pakistan’s government on Wednesday released copies of a document it claimed proved that Mr Sharif had promised to remain out of the country for 10 years, lawyers expressed doubt that the court would recognise it as binding.
In his autobiography, published last year, Mr Musharraf shed light on the role of Saudi Arabia, saying that Mr Sharif ”had used his previous contact with Crown Prince (now King) Abdullah, who asked me to allow Nawaz Sharif to go into exile there”.
The army chief said he had believed that sending Mr Sharif’s entire family out of the country would be ”politically advantageous” as it would avoid the ”prolonged destabilising effect of a high profile trial”.
”They have an inalienable right to come back and stay in the country,” Chief Justice Chaudhry told the court, referring to Sharif and his brother, Shahbaz Sharif, who is also a politician and was exiled with his brother in 2000.
If Mr Sharif returns, politicians who switched camps to join the Pakistan Muslim League (Quaid-e-Azam), a ’King’s party’ that was formed to support Mr Musharraf in parliament, may now defect back to the camp of the former prime minister.
Khawaja Asif-leader of Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League said the verdict was ”a major blow to the military’s dominance over Pakistan. We must work together to stop him from securing another term in office.”
Fakhr Imam, a former speaker of the lower house of parliament and a leader of Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party, said: “How can General Musharraf pretend to be in charge when this situation is turning completely against him,” Mr Imam said. ”I just don’t see how Musharraf can continue to hold charge of this country any more.”