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| 30 March 2004 | Tuesday | 08 Safar 1425 |
NA speaker agrees to discuss calling Hashmi to session
ISLAMABAD, March 29: National Assembly Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain, responding to continuing opposition protests, on Monday agreed to discuss in an advisory committee whether to call the arrested president of the Alliance for Restoration of Democracy, Javed Hashmi, to the lower house.
But despite his willingness to discuss the issue, members of all opposition parties staged a walkout to protest against his reluctance so far to accept their demand to order the production of Mr Hashmi, who was arrested in October and is now being tried inside Adiala Jail, near Rawalpindi, for alleged sedition and an attempt to incite an army mutiny.
With government concurrence, the speaker promised to take up their demand on Wednesday in the business advisory committee, which usually meets before every house sitting and has representation from both the treasury and opposition benches.
Tempers, which had apparently cooled down by the speaker's gesture, rose to a new pitch some time later with an altercation between the chair and Naheed Khan, political secretary to PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto, when the house resumed its continuing debate on President Pervez Musharraf's Jan 17 speech to a joint session of parliament.
However, the speaker avoided what could have been another opposition walkout by reversing his decision to stop Naheed Khan from continuing her speech, in which she criticised Gen Pervez Musharraf.
From the start of Monday's afternoon session, a Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz group) member and Mr Hashmi's daughter, Maimona Hashmi, held up on her desk a portrait of her father, who is also PML-N acting president.
But the speaker paid no attention to her until some other party members, including Nisar Ali Khan, Tehmina Daultana, and Raja Nadir Pervez, as well as Liaqat Baloch of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal alliance raised the matter through points of order.
From the government side, Minister of State for Law and Parliamentary Affairs Mohammad Raza Hayat Hiraj agreed for a consideration of the issue at the house advisory committee meeting to be held before the start of house sitting on Wednesday.
SPEAKER-NAHEED CLASH: The verbal clash with Naheed Khan, after she began attacking President Musharraf's actions, was probably the worst the speaker had with an individual member since the present National Assembly began its sessions in November 2002.
The verbal duel started after the PPP member accused Gen Musharraf of making parliament subservient to himself and harming democracy and the speaker interjected to tell her that it was because of the same democracy that she was making her critical speech.
Naheed Khan complained of undue interruption by the speaker who, after exchange of hot words some of which were later expunged from the proceedings, stopped her from speaking any further and called another member to speak.
Almost all PPP members rose in their seats and seemed ready to stage a protest walkout. However, on the intervention of PPP chief whip Khurshid Ahmed Shah, the speaker allowed Naheed Khan to resume her speech.
WANA OPERATION: Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat promised to brief opposition members about the situation of military operations in South Waziristan tribal agency in search of foreign militants and their local protectors at a meeting of his ministry's standing committee on Tuesday.
He said all members of the National Assembly and Senate from the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas and any other opposition members suggested by the speaker would be invited to the meeting.
The house also admitted and referred to its standing committee on privileges a privilege motion from a PML-N member from Punjab, Rana Asif Tauseef, who said he was attacked by some unknown people while he was driving from Faisalabad to Islamabad on Monday to attend the assembly session.
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