WASHINGTON, June 5: Three senior US lawmakers have urged the Bush administration to use its influence to stop “state-sponsored” and “often violent” suppression of opposition protests in Pakistan.

In a letter to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the lawmakers asked the administration to ensure that the forthcoming elections in Pakistan were fair and free because “flawed elections” would only help extremist forces.

“We urged you to make a public appeal to this end, and to raise these matters forcefully in your interactions with Pakistani government officials,” the lawmakers said.

Senator Joseph Biden heads the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations while Congressman Tom Lantos chairs the House of Representatives International Relations Committee. Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen is the panel’s senior Republican.

“Over the past two months, we have witnessed the spiral of civil unrest and harshly suppressed protest in Pakistan with increasing concern,” the lawmakers wrote.

“The national interests of the United States and Pakistan are both served by a speedy restoration of full democracy to Pakistan and the end to state-sponsored intimidation -- often violent -- of Pakistani citizens protesting government actions in a legal and peaceful manner.”

The US lawmakers warned that a “flawed election would marginalise moderate parties and voices, empowering extremist groups to exert far greater influence over Pakistani society.”

The Pakistan government, they said, has responded to the protests by “arresting, detaining and beating citizens, many of them lawyers demonstrating peacefully.”

They also referred to the May 12 violence in Karachi that left more than 40 people dead and 150 wounded and claimed that the attack on opposition protesters showed “disturbing signs of collusion between MQM and government forces.”

They noted that “the paramilitary Rangers and police, whether by inaction or acting on specific orders, clearly failed to protect the lives of citizens under attack by armed gangs…There have been disturbing reports of security forces closing off streets while gunmen targeted PPP and ANP members. There have also been disturbing ethnic overtones to some of the violence.”

They said the driving force behind the protests was that civil society groups were concerned the elections would be rigged.