Excerpts of address Woodrow  Wilson Centre-Washington
May 25, 1999

Talking about fascism in Pakistan she said "It is as if we had slipped fifteen years into the past, when I came to Washington after my release as a political prisoner in 1984 to plead the case of Pakistani democracy in the halls of Congress, to the administration, the press and the academy. Now, like then, we see human rights abused and trampled. Now, like then, we see Religious Fanatics, Extremists and Fundamentalists dictating national policies  -- writing the laws, manipulating the Parliament, assaulting the independent judiciary. Now, like then, we see fear and raw force ruling Pakistan like an iron fist. Then it was General Zia-ul-Haq now, it is Nawaz Sharif".

Speaking about Nawaz Sharif's bid for a totalitarian and dictatorial rule she said "There is no limit to what Nawaz Sharif will do to reshuffle the chemistry of politics in Pakistan, to destroy any last vestiges of a political opposition, a free press, an independent judiciary, even an independent military. He is a man of no constraints, no limits, no laws. There has never in the history of Pakistan been so much raw and unchallenged power concentrated in the hands of one person. Not even under General Zia ul Haq were institutions, laws and human dignity so openly, shamelessly and repeatedly violated with impunity".

About her victimization by Nawaz Sharif she said, "Nawaz Sharif is a man of no constraints, no limits, no laws. Nawaz Sharif has brought charge after charge against me, based on these blatant violations of due process and the simplest elements of justice. Murder, conspiracy, corruption, kickbacks   -- my husband and I have been accused of everything under the sun  -- from patronage to pollution to pilfering.And when one of these concocted cases  -- based on overtly forged documents and testimony elicited under torture  -- was brought forward, it was sent to a Justice who is the son of the man who hanged my father. There is no subtly in this regime".

She further said " Nawaz Sharif will show no limits, will exercise no constraints, is bound by no laws in pursuit of what he and his dictator mentor have worked so hard for so long  -- the destruction of the Bhuttos, the Pakistan Peoples Party and the democratic movement of Pakistan in pursuit of imposing a theocratic state run by fanatics. It is an insatiable thirst, an irrational and reckless obsession  -- threatening the very foundations of a Pakistan built on the principles of constitution, rule of law and freedom".

She said "Unlike the Sharif family, which while in government turned a small business into a cartel worth billions, I had neither the need nor desire to defraud my people. For better or worse my family has been one of the leading landed families of Sindh for generations, and my father left me well provided". 

Describing Nawaz fascist regime she said "The new fascist regime has banned popular music on television in Pakistan, calling it decadent.        It has refused to condemn murderers of women committed in the name of honour. It has refused, despite a constitutional majority, to restore women’s seats to Parliament. The new fascist regime has suspended the elected Assembly in our country’s second largest province and established military courts for summary trials. The new fascist regime, has hanged people after summary trials, has engaged in terrorism as a daily occurrence, has assaulted the position of minorities in society, and has all but decimated the free press. The new fascist regime has forced girls in schools to wear the veil, and has set the cause of women in Pakistan back a full generation".

She said that the free press in Pakistan is being trampled over and " Newspaper editors have been kidnapped, tortured and detained.  Najam Sethi, the distinguished editor of the independent Friday Times, was arrested by the police, literally dragged from his bed in the middle of the night, physically tortured, mentally abused, not permitted to see his family or lawyers. This brutality went on for over two weeks, causing the United States government and the international community to denounce Nawaz’s brutality. Sethi still rots in a Class C cell.  And what was his crime?  Making a speech critical of the human rights record of the Nawaz regime  -- this is an offense in fascist Pakistan, this is what triggers arrest and torture. Independent journalists have disappeared, kidnapped in the middle of the night and taken away to torture cells recreating the atmosphere of Argentina under the generals' junta.       Columnists who have been critical of the regime have been beaten and had their bones broken and families threatened, like the former Pakistani Ambassador to Sri Lanka, Hussain Haqqani.

Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto warned the world "Like Zia before him, Nawaz is attempting to manipulate Islam for his own power.  He already has a two-thirds majority in the National Assembly Parliament, and is only a few votes shy of a two-thirds majority in the Senate. After next February, when he will pack fully one-third of the Senate with his handpicked cronies, he will have every card in the deck. He will not only control every institution of power and politics, every element of the media and the military, but will have the ability to amend the Constitution at will.  And then his dictatorship will be complete".

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