LAHORE, Feb 3: Jamaat-e-Islami has condemned the caretaker government and president Gen Musharraf for threatening media, detaining lawyers' leaders and keeping under detention the forcibly sacked chief justice and other judges refusing oaths under PCO.

In a statement on Sunday, JI information secretary Amirul Azim castigated the caretaker information minister for issuing threats to media, saying formulation of code of conduct for media is not the job of caretaker government or any military general. He said instead of performing its prime duty of holding transparent and fair elections, the caretaker government is focused on protecting and prolonging the illegal rule of a military dictator against the wishes of the people.

Commenting on the re-detention of Supreme Court Bar president Aitzaz Ahsan, Justice retd Tariq Mehmood and Ali Ahmad Kurd, Amirul Azim said the retired General and his team is afraid of unarmed people and are using entire state machinery to protect the unconstitutional presidency. He said people are not interested in the elections since they know fully well that rigged elections are planned to install a Washington-slave and dictator-obeying government as a result of elections. He said polling stations will remain deserted on Feb 18 but former and present rulers have made elaborate plan of rigging through ghost polling booths and postal ballots. He said the entire state machinery is running PML-Q election campaign while the president House has been turned into a camp office of PML-Q.

He said his party salutes the deposed chief justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhri and his fellow sacked judges of supreme court, lawyers community and national media for showing courage and perseverance against the military dictator to lead the nation at these troubled times.

 
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