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| August 1, 2005 | Monday | Jumadi-us-Sani 24, 1426 |
SC to take up Hasba Bill reference today
ISLAMABAD, July 31: A reference made by the federal government about the Hasba Bill passed by the NWFP Assembly will be taken up by the Supreme Court on Monday.
The controversy over the bill is the latest episode of a long struggle between moderates and religious conservatives for control of Pakistan’s future.
The issue has blown up amid a recent government crackdown on militants, fundamentalists and firebrand preachers which has netted more than 600 suspects in the past two weeks.
Diplomats in Islamabad say President Pervez Musharraf’s handling of the bill will show how serious he is about containing and rolling back the religious right.
Gen Musharraf is trying to lead his nation down a path of “enlightened moderation”, but critics say he has allowed the clerics who lead religio-political parties to build power bases in Pakistan’s mainstream politics.
Relations between Musharraf and the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal, has soured in the past year and the president now appears to be trying to take a stronger stand.
He filed a petition to the Supreme Court for an opinion of the Hasba bill after the Islamists rushed it through the provincial assembly earlier this month.
The governor of Frontier, which borders Afghanistan and is also dominated by conservative Pashtun tribes, will have to wait for the court’s observations — notably on whether the bill breaches Pakistan’s constitution — before deciding whether he should sign it into law.
The bill envisages a Hasba department headed by clerics, which critics say is modelled on the Taliban’s Department of Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice.
Before the Taliban were driven from power in late 2001, religious police roamed Afghan streets, forcing people to pray, ensuring women did not leave home without a head-to-toe burqa and confronting men who did not have beards.
The Hasba bill sets out powers for religious police to ensure observance of Islamic practices and values while curbing activities and customs deemed un-Islamic.
But Musharraf has said that the proposed law would take away people’s freedom.
Speaking at a public rally in Frontier province’s picturesque Swat valley on Saturday, he urged people to reject extremist forces.
The Islamists swept to power in NWFP in 2002, profiting from anti-American sentiment fuelled by the U.S.-led war in neighbouring Afghanistan.
They have taken several steps that echoed the Taliban’s rule — banning music on public transport, stopping male doctors from examining women, men from coaching women athletes and male journalists from covering women’s sports.
The clerics deny they will use force to make people follow Islamic practices, but instead would use persuasion.—Reuters
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