Noisy protests disrupt NA proceedings: Opposition stages walkouts
By Our Reporter
ISLAMABAD, April 21: The opposition parties noisily protested and walked out of the National Assembly on Thursday, leaving the field open for the treasury benches to rush through two bills without a debate. Separate walkouts, led by the People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPP) and the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) also triggered a brief suspension of proceedings for lack of quorum for the fourth time since the session began on April 11.
The PPP protested against continued detention its ‘thousands’ of followers after their arrest at the weekend to thwart a welcome for ex-senator Asif Ali Zardari on his return to Lahore from Dubai.
The MMA agitated against the arrest of its MNA, Qazi Hamidullah, for allegedly leading an armed attack on a mixed sporting event in Gujranwala on April 2 and the Wednesday’s killing of a pro-MMA student activist in Karachi.
Amid confusion and in an opposition-less house, the treasury members passed a resolution, condemning the detention of Senator Maulana Samiul Haq for some time at Belgium’s Brussels airport and refusal of the European Parliament to hold talks with a delegation of the Pakistani Senate’s foreign affairs committee because of inclusion of Mr Haq in it.
One bill passed by the house — the Members of Parliament (Salaries and Allowances) (Amendment) Bill — improves the language of a clause of a 1974 act that provides for an automatic revision in the salaries, allowances and privileges of parliament members in proportion to those of civil servants.
The amended clause 14B of the Members of Parliament (Salaries and Allowances) Act of 1974 says: “The salaries, allowances and privileges of the members shall automatically be increased by federal government in proportion to increase in the emoluments of civil servants.”
The other draft — the Federal Public Service Commission (Second Amendment) Bill — validates actions taken and appointments made by ministries and government departments in basic pay scales 11 to 15 after May 28, 2003 in accordance with the Federal Public Service Commission (Amendment) Ordinance enforced on the same date. The ordinance had expired and was converted into the present bill.
The PPP staged the session’s noisiest protest, marked by slogans against President Pervez Musharraf, before storming out of the house for a march to the nearby Supreme Court building in defiance of a ban on processions.
“Go Musharraf go”, the PPP members repeatedly shouted during a fiery speech by party’s Secretary-General Raja Pervez Ashraf and when he led them out of the house after accusing the government of opting for a ‘fascist attitude negating democracy and parliament’.
“Such absurd tactics cannot stop the PPP from carrying on its fight for democracy,” he said while referring to mass detentions of party workers and several parliamentarians in a crackdown that marked Mr Zardari’s return.
“We faced Ayub Khan’s martial law, we confronted Ziaul Haq’s martial law and we will also oppose Pervez Musharraf’s martial law,” Mr Ashraf said.
Some opposition members accused the government of undermining parliament and democracy while speaking on the resolution moved by Parliamentary Affairs Minister Sher Afgan Niazi to condemn an ‘uncalled for treatment meted out to Maulana Haq for his perceived sympathies for Afghanistan’s toppled Taliban regime’.
“After whatever is happening with the parliamentarians within our country, this was bound to happen in Belgium,” PPP’s Ashraf said.
Another PPP member, Aitzaz Ahsan, said the parliament members could not expect a better treatment abroad when their own government did not treat them well.
Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf leader Imran Khan walked out in protest as the chair switched off his mike after he said religious leaders were bound to be seen in bad light abroad as the president himself described them as extremists.
PROTESTS WITHIN COALITION: Mian Riaz Hussain Pirzada of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League was all protest over the passage of the resolution in the absence of the opposition parties and asked: “What message are we giving to the world?”
Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Makhdoom Khusro Bakhtiar told the house the Foreign Ministry had summoned European Union and Belgian ambassadors on Thursday and lodged protests against what he called a discriminatory treatment given to Maulana Haq.
The PML faced another protest from within when its outspoken back-bencher M.P. Bhandara, an expert on parliamentary conventions, accused the government of stream-rolling the bills by avoiding a debate.
