Islamabad, November 6
Pakistani police beat up and arrested lawyers protesting against the imposition of emergency rule today, while officials under US pressure said an election would be held in early 2008.
Opposition politicians, including Benazir Bhutto, have spoken out but there has been no real action on their part so far, and the struggle has been left to the lawyers.
Troops in Islamabad manned razor-wire checkpoints near the presidential palace, Parliament and Supreme Court early on Tuesday, while the police vetted lawyers trying to enter the High Court in the country's financial hub, Karachi.
Over a dozen lawyers chanting ''Go Musharraf Go'' and throwing stones at police were beaten with
batons and bundled into trucks in the central city of Multan, a Reuters witness said.
A dozen more were detained in the High Court premises in Lahore, according to a Reuters photographer, but a protest by about 200 lawyers in Islamabad passed off peacefully.
Musharraf, who seized power in a 1999 coup, has detained hundreds of lawyers and opposition politicians since Saturday.
The move was seen as an attempt to stop any chance of the Supreme Court invalidating his re-election by parliament as president last month because he stood while still army chief.
Stock market that dropped 4.6 per cent yesterday, its largest daily fall in terms of points, as emergency rule scared investors, fell early today before recovering ground to rise about 1.1 per cent by mid-afternoon.
Standard & Poor's said it had revised its credit ratings outlook on Pakistan from stable to negative.
The ratings agency cited prolonged political uncertainty following emergency rule ''and its potential impact on economic growth, fiscal performance, and external vulnerability''.
— Reuters
