‘I am not afraid,’ Benazir Bhutto shouts, as 6,000 officers stop rally

She was lying of course, she can claim she was not afraid but she was surrounded by bodyguards, thousands of supporters and hiding inside an armored car.

This will worsen before it gets better. I’m sure the press is under reporting the amount of violence on both sides. The hard truth is Pakistan has to remain under an iron fist of a secular dictator or the pious Muslim pedophile worshipers will own all the nukes. Other than violence, mayhem and death the clerics have nothing to offer their legions of minions.

The pedophile worshipers would love to see Musharraf toppled. He has been somewhat successful holding them at bay, even offering concessions when necessary. Naturally they always demanded more and attempted to kill him when they didn’t get their way. Now Musharraf finally understands, he wins or they do, there is no other way for this to end.

The questions that need answered is how quickly Pakistan will be attacked if Musharraf falls and who will lead the charge. One thing is certain, the pedophile worshiping clerics will never be allowed to run Pakistan.

This is not about democracy or human rights those things have never existed in Islam, this is about survival of the Pakistani people. Pick your century 7th or 21st.

9 November, 2007, The Times
Police blocked Benazir Bhutto, the former Prime Minister of Pakistan, from leaving her home and sealed off most of the capital today to stop her from leading a rally against emergency rule.

In dramatic scenes outside her villa in Islamabad, Ms Bhutto twice tried to break through lines of riot police, barbed wire and concrete blocks to reach the rally in the nearby town of Rawalpindi.

“Do not raise hands on women. You are Muslims,” she told police as her bullet-proof white Toyota Landcruiser approached the barricades, escorted by 50 aides from her Pakistan People’s Party.

“My fight is not with you, my uniformed brothers, I am fighting for democracy.” She broke through the first barrier outside her house, but police blocked her at the end of the street with an armoured personnel carrier and two police vans.

“I am not afraid of these repressive measures,” she shouted through a loudspeaker to reporters just the other side of the barrier, as her aides chanted “Long live Bhutto!” Police also detained about 100 of her supporters outside her home and used tear gas to disperse dozens more at the rally site, which was blocked off by barbed wire, concrete blocks and some 6,000 officers.

It was the first major confrontation between Ms Bhutto and General Musharraf since he imposed a state of emergency last Saturday, triggering domestic and international outcry.

General Musharraf, who seized power in a coup in 1999, tried to defuse the crisis yesterday by promising to hold parliamentary elections by February 15 – a month later than originally scheduled.

Ms Bhutto, however, has dismissed that commitment as “too vague” and demanded that he lift the emergency, step down as army chief by November 15 and return to the original election timetable.

Today’s standoff appeared to bolster her position, by providing dramatic images of her – dressed in her trademark white headscarf – standing up to General Musharraf’s riot police.

Britain and the United States, which back General Musharraf as an ally in the War on Terror but have condemned the emergency, called for all of Ms Bhutto’s supporters to be released.

“Former Prime Minister Bhutto and other political party members must be permitted freedom of movement and all protesters released,” said Gordon Johndroe, spokesman for the U.S. National Security Council.

The PPP says 5,000 of its supporters were arrested ahead of the rally in Rawalpindi, while the government says 1,500 people have been detained overall since the emergency began.

Ms Bhutto, who returned to Pakistan after eight year’s self-imposed exile last month, has threatened to stage a protest march from the eastern city of Lahore to Islamabad on Tuesday if her demands are not met.

Brigadier Javed Cheema, a senior interior ministry official, said she had been served a three-day detention notice, but she denied receiving any such order. Officials said tonight that the order had been rescinded.

He also said the rally had been stopped because suicide bombers had infilitrated Rawalpindi.

That raised fears of a repeat of the double suicide blast that killed 139 people at her homecoming parade in Karachi on October 18.

Another suicide bomber blew himself up today at the house of a federal minister in the northwestern city of Peshawar, killing four of his security guards.

Amir Muqam, the Minister for Political Affairs and the provincial chief of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League party, was unhurt, but his brother was seriously wounded.

Two Pakistani soldiers were also killed in an attack on an army post in the northwestern district of Swat, where militants have been gaining ground in the last few days despite the emergency.

“Now the militants from the tribal regions are trying to establish control,” Ms Bhutto said. “We have to save Pakistan from the dictatorship of the Taleban.”

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