Pakistani Legal Leader Discussed Fight for Democracy during Rutgers-Camden Law School Lecture

CAMDEN -If democracy is to exist in Pakistan, its best hope is among lawyers, says a previously detained senior advocate of the Pakistan Supreme Court during a March 7 visit to the Rutgers School of Law—Camden.

Sahibzada Anwar Hamid discussed his illegal incarceration and the struggles of a post-911 Pakistan during a lecture sponsored by the student chapters of the National Lawyers Guild and the American Constitution Society at the Rutgers—Camden law school.

A lawyer who was serving as vice president of the Supreme Court Bar Association, Hamid was arrested a day after Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf declared emergency rule in late 2007. On Nov. 4, 70 soldiers forced entry into his home without a warrant. The warrant surfaced later, but was dated Nov. 5. Hamid was put into solitary confinement for 13 days. According to Hamid, 1,700 lawyers and journalists have been arrested under the Anti-Terrorism Act and 6,000 missing individuals in Pakistan are suspected to be detained by the government.

While Hamid pointed out that Pakistan has undergone turbulent political times since it gained independence in 1947 from Great Britain, the country’s latest fight for constitutional rights is the most significant of struggles.  Protests against Musharraf’s constitutional amendments, including his placing Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry on inactive status, dissolving Parliament, appointing chiefs of the military services, and the validity of his very presidency, continue to smolder. 

Ryan Hancock, a Rutgers—Camden law school 2003 alum and co-chair of the Pakistan Lawyers Coalition, introduced Hamid and discussed his trip to Pakistan last year to survey human rights violations against journalists and lawyers. Hancock is a civil rights attorney in Philadelphia.

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