Word: islamabad
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...days Bhutto had planned to lead a rally in the nearby town of Rawalpindi to celebrate her return to Islamabad, the nation's capital, but when President Pervez Musharraf declared emergency rule last Saturday, the rally morphed into an anti-emergency protest. By Friday morning, however, the protest was hardly able to get off the ground. Overnight, police blocked all private vehicles from entering Ralwalpindi, spread barbed wire across the streets of the protest venue and flooded the park grounds where she was to speak in order to prevent supporters from sitting on the ground. A few hundred protesters clashed...
Meanwhile, Bhutto, trapped in her home in Islamabad, some 10 miles away, was able to receive members of the national assembly. "I'm going in," shouted senator Enver Baig, as he strode purposefully toward the assembled police. They melted away as he passed, then reformed their blockade. Other politicians were not so lucky. Nahid Hayat, a party worker hoping to run for office, stood in front of the police to address the crowd. Before she had a chance to speak, she was bundled into a waiting police car. "I have been given no reason to be arrested," she screamed...
...white land cruiser parked out front, a crowd of teenagers at a nearby empty lot continued to play cricket. The local-language press - generally cynical and conspiracy-minded - grumbled about the theatrics of the whole event, pointing out the lack of visible grass roots support for Bhutto in both Islamabad and Rawalpindi...
...that Bhutto doesn't have support, says Awan, but simply that Islamabad has never been a place where crowds gather. "It's not like Sindh," he says, referring to the southern province whose capital, Karachi, saw some 200,000 supporters gather to greet Bhutto upon her return from exile last month. Bhutto's Pakistan's People Party (PPP) leaders still claim the number was closer to 3 million. "People in Islamabad are not willing to get arrested. The Punjabi police [who are in charge of the capital] are notoriously brutal. And there have already been so many arrests - people...
...anything to regain power, even if it means making a deal with a dictator. The lack of a popular turnout at today's protests, say some analysts, is an indication of public indifference. Not so, say party leaders, who claim that more than 5,000 workers were arrested overnight. Islamabad police say the number is half that - for the week...