March 16, 2007	Friday	Safar 26, 1428

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LAHORE, March 15: The law and policy department of the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) on Thursday launched a signature campaign among faculty and students on a petition, which was drafted to denounce the government’s attack on the judiciary and freedom of movement, assembly and speech.

The department had organised a teach-in session for the faculty and students on Wednesday to discuss the government move of ‘suspending’ the Chief Justice of Pakistan.

When contacted, department head Osama Siddique said the session was organised to apprise the faculty and students about the government’s action and its implications for Pakistan.

He said some 700 students and faculty members had signed the petition on the first day and the department wanted to get around 1,000 signatures before releasing it to the media and other bodies in the country.

The petition says: “We, the faculty, students and staff of LUMS denounce the arbitrary, coercive and insulting manner in which the government has unlawfully detained and is attempting to remove from office the Chief Justice of Pakistan. We deplore the unconstitutional, mala fide and blatantly dictatorial manner in which the government has attempted to discredit the apex court and dissuade its judges from challenging the executive’s corruption and violations of fundamental rights by the national security agencies. This act exposes the hollow core of the government’s democratic pretensions, affirms the worst tradition of executive contempt for the independence of the judiciary and brings the entire country into disrepute in the eyes of its citizens and the world. We also condemn in the strongest possible terms the government’s shameful brutality in attacking our colleagues in the legal profession for exercising their democratic and human right to peacefully assemble in protest against this gross violation of judicial independence and the rule of law. We challenge the government’s claims of promoting freedom of speech and expression while simultaneously prohibiting peaceful assemblies by the legal fraternity, attempting censorship of the news media by threatening action against critical commentary and imposing a clampdown on the dissemination of information concerning the proceedings before the Supreme Judicial Council.

“We demand the Chief Justice of Pakistan be reinstated forthwith to his office; we demand that the government apologise to the nation for its unconstitutional actions and we demand the federal law minister and other legal advisers to the government resign immediately from their posts for their complicity in this disreputable action.”

It may be mentioned that the students, who were wearing black armbands, called the campaign as Bol Keh Lab Azad Hein Teray.