Civil and Political rights situation during Musharraf era (1999 - 2004)

Abstract

 The paper examines the civil and political rights situation especially the independence of the judiciary, political space for opposition and state of media freedoms during the first five years (1999-2004) of military dictator Pervez Musharraf. Despite being a military dictator, he ventured to portray himself as a liberal political leader as in order to get legitimacy in the country and recognition from the outside world he undertook different measures. He convened a national conference on human rights, introduced political reforms including devolving powers at the lower level and pursued apparently a liberal and mediafriendly policy. However, these measures proved to be artificial and in practice, the overall civil and political rights situation remained dismayed. The military government tempered with the constitution, undermined independence and impartiality of judiciary through making it subservient to the executive, suppressed political activities and curbed media freedoms. The political leaders, parties and journalists and media groups critical to the military leadership were intimidated, coerced, harassed, physically and mentally tortured, arrested and even sentenced to imprisonment through registering against them cases of severe crimes