Fri May 18, 2007 by Anil Kalhan
AsiaMedia: The Looming Clouds of Emergency?
Last weekend’s bout of political violence in Karachi — the worst the city has seen in years — culminated a tumultuous week in which the stakes escalated sharply in the conflict between Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf and supporters of now the “non-functional” Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry. With Musharraf and his allies clamping down on political opponents, interfering with freedom of the press, and raising the specter of a state of emergency, the prospects for the return of Pakistani democracy may hang in the balance. . . .