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ABA: Lawyers Across the U.S. Call for Restoration of Justice in Pakistan

For Immediate Release
Contact: Omer Waqas Khwaja: +1 404 936 1180
Jaspreet K. Singh, Esq.: +1 404 319 9988
crdp@crdpnow.org

November 21, 2007
With an increase in repression since General Pervez Musharraf's November 3rd declaration of a state of emergency in Pakistan, the Campaign to Restore Democracy to Pakistan (CRDP) has brought lawyers, professors, students, human rights organizations, and expatriate Pakistanis together with their counterparts in Pakistan in a struggle against Musharraf's brutal military dictatorship.

CRDP has launched a website featuring a live-feed of statements and press-releases issued by lawyers, journalists, judges, and other embattled segments of Pakistani society. The campaign will also advise on ways to increase the flow of information in and out of Pakistan as the Pakistani government attempts to conceal the increasingly oppressive situation from the rest of the world.

In the first of three phases proposed by its organizers, CRDP will pressure the Musharraf regime and its allies to put an end to the State of Emergency and restore Rule of Law in the country. Professor Ayesha Jalal, who teaches History at Tufts University and is a member of the campaign's steering committee stated, "What Pakistan needs here and now is for Musharraf to lift martial law, release all those herded into jail for protesting his Nov. 3 decree and lift the curbs on the media."

With consultation from the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, the British Human Rights Committee, and members of the ABA, the campaign has issued the following list of priorities in its demand that General Musharraf give up his post as army chief immediately and act within the law and Constitution to effect the following:

a. release of all judges, political and human rights activists;
b. lifting all curbs on media;
c. restoration of all judges of the superior courts to pre-PCO state;
d. revival of the constitution and recognition of its supremacy;
e. reinstatement of unconstitutionally removed judges and recognition of the sanctity of the judicial procedure;
f. establishment of an independent election commission under a caretaker government formed with the consensus of major political parties.

According to Ms. Asma Jahangir, a veteran of the struggle to safeguard human rights in Pakistan,“[t]his alone will see a healthy transition to democracy, otherwise the military rule will carry on in some form or another and so will tension. In the meantime militants will reap the benefits of this instability and discontent.”

CRDP is structured as an issue-based campaign and has a steering committee composed primarily of lawyers, judges, human rights activists, journalists, and professors in Pakistan to set the strategic priorities for its legislative efforts. It is registered as a non-profit and will be eligible to receive funds from donors to carry out lobbying work in the United States.