September 3, 2002	Tuesday	Jamadi-us-Saani24,1423

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ISLAMABAD, Sept 2: The PPP has appealed to the UN to take notice of the government’s “design” to keep the party chairperson, Benzair Bhutto, out of the election process.

The coordinator of the party’s human rights desk, Fauzia Wahab, in a letter addressed to Dato’ Param Cumaraswamy, the UN, Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers, said: “The Election Commission appeared to be lenient and gave clearance to all the applicants. Their attitude, however, changed the moment Benazir Bhutto’s call was made. All those who were present to watch the historic moment were forcibly dragged out. Extra police was called in and that tiny room, where the proceedings were being held suddenly became surrounded by a heavy contingent of police. Heavily armed riot police took position in and around the election office.”

She said it seemed that the decision had been made and “they knew that another travesty of justice is being made,” which would not be easy for the people to accept.

Strangely, the letter said, Ms Bhutto’s name was called at 2.56pm, while the two o’clock news of the Radio Pakistan had already announced her disqualification from the women’s seat. This time her disqualification rested for not being present before the Election Commissioner, and it took him hardly three minutes to reach this decision.

“The laws that were promulgated to keep the only person, who could challenge the authority of the army, out of the political arena were finally achieving what had been planned by them for so long.”

Informing about the unjustified rejection of nomination papers of other PPP leaders she wrote, earlier the Sindh PPP chief, Nisar Khuro, had been declared as ineligible for elections, and the axe of disqualification has also fallen on Afaq Shahid, Ali Nawaz Shah, and Khursheed Shah, though all their papers were in order.

“The premises for disqualifying our senior leaders are flimsy and do not carry any legal weight...,” the letter said.