[NYTr] "Rise up!" says Pakistani sports star

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

The Independent - Nov 15, 2007
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article3157778.ece


Imran Khan's message from hiding: Rise up

By Omar Waraich

The Pakistani cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan is to emerge from
hiding today to call for a student uprising against General Pervez
Musharraf's emergency rule.

"The students have to be mobilised to save the judiciary," Mr Khan said
last night in an interview with The Independent from a secret location.
"What Musharraf achieved by this emergency was to get rid of this
judiciary. Even if he lifts the emergency and holds elections, they are
going to be meaningless." He added: "We will still be stuck ... with
pliant judges who endorse every illegal act of a dictator. And so
people will be deprived of their fundamental rights, since the
judiciary is not independent. There will be no one to protect the
independent media. There will be no one to protect an independent
electoral commission.

"Now they have passed an act where civilians can be tried in military
courts." Mr Khan was forced into hiding amid a crackdown on opposition
politicians and lawyers when a state of emergency was imposed on 3
November. He has been on the move ever since and changes mobile phones
regularly.

He warned yesterday against continued international support for General
Musharraf's increasingly unpopular regime. "The biggest mistake the
West is making is backing one man at the cost of 160 million people,"
he said. "There is a danger of things turning out like they did for the
Shah of Iran .. The pro-democracy movement will go anti-American."

While Mr Khan has long been critical of Benazir Bhutto's negotiations
with General Musharraf, Mr Khan said that the All Parties Democratic
Movement (APDM) - a coalition of opposition parties led by former prime
minister Nawaz Sharif's PML-N - would join hands with the Pakistan
People's Party leader if she boycotted the elections. "Musharraf has
zero credibility left in Pakistan. While Benazir claimed to be
negotiating a transition to democracy, all of us knew that he had no
intention of leaving power. She was giving him a lifeline. She actually
helped him. But if the PPP boycotts the polls, we will all join her,"
he said.

Mr Khan believes that he will "almost certainly" be arrested today when
he arrives at the Punjab University campus in Lahore. "If I can't get
away, at least there will be various tiers of command to continue the
movement," he said. "Tomorrow is just the beginning."