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ISLAMABAD - Opponents of embattled Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf planned nationwide protests Monday against emergency rule as the military leader faced growing pressure not to delay January elections.
Hundreds of critics have been rounded up since the state of emergency was declared late Saturday when Musharraf suspended the constitution, sacked the country's chief justice and imposed strict media curbs.
Security forces staffed barricades of barbed wire and sandbags outside key state installations and manned checkpoints Monday amid fears of retaliatory action by Islamic extremists.
The Supreme Court had been expected within days to rule on the validity of Musharraf's October 6 presidential election victory, triggering speculation he took the measure because it may have been about to rule against him.
Late Sunday, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said parliamentary polls scheduled for January may be put back by up to a year.
"We are still deliberating. The parliament could give itself more time, up to a year, in terms of holding the next election," Aziz told reporters.
He said up to 500 people had been detained across Pakistan. Officials said they included opposition leaders, rights activists and lawyers.
Musharraf, a key US ally in the "war on terror" who seized power in a coup in 1999, said when he declared the state of emergency that he wanted to stop Pakistan committing "suicide".
He accused the judiciary of interfering in government affairs, saying they and Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants in the tribal belt were destabilising the nuclear-armed nation of 160 million people.
There was swift international criticism, with the United States saying it would review its aid, although -- with thousands of US troops in neighbouring Afghanistan -- it was cautious about military assistance.
"We are going to review aid," Rice told journalists during a trip to the Middle East. "But we do have concerns, continuing counter-terrorism concerns, and we have to be able to protect American citizens by continuing to fight against terrorists."
In Islamabad, the Supreme Court Bar Association called a nationwide strike and there will be protests by lawyers against the state of emergency.
Pakistan's main coalition of Islamic fundamentalist parties, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal or United Action Front, said it would hold demonstrations at the same time.
"We will join lawyers in protests on Monday," alliance spokesman Shahid Shamsi said.
He said the alliance's chief, Qazi Hussain Ahmad, "has urged people to send flowers to the judges who ruled against the emergency and throw garbage outside the judges who accepted jobs under Musharraf."
A spokesman for the Pakistan Muslim League of exiled prime minister Nawaz Sharif said it was meeting on Monday to decide its course of action.
The party's acting chief Javed Hashmi was one of those rounded up over the weekend, as well as leading rights activist Asma Jahangir and cricketer turned politician Imran Khan.
Former prime minister Benazir Bhutto described emergency rule as an attempt to impose martial law and accused Musharraf of staging a "second coup," but did not rule out a proposed power-sharing deal.
"It all depends on whether General Musharraf restores the constitution immediately and forms an independent election commission for the holding of fair, free and impartial elections," she told the BBC from Karachi.
Musharraf's first decisive step under emergency rule was to sack outspoken chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, a thorn in his side since he first tried to sack him in March.
As well as overseeing legal challenges to Musharraf's re-election, Chaudhry had been hearing hundreds of human rights appeals from families of people who went missing over the last four years because of alleged Al-Qaeda links.
Chaudhry's suspension in March also triggered protests by lawyers that mushroomed into nationwide anti-Musharraf rallies. He was later reinstated. - AFP/ir
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