Musharraf takes fright at plan for morality police in radical province

Islamabad, Pakistan - Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf launched a last-ditch court attempt yesterday to quash a proposed law creating a Taliban-like morality police in the conservative Northwest Frontier Province.

The province's hisbah (accountability) bill would empower an Islamist police force with draconian powers to close down cinemas and businesses at prayer time, interrogate couples about their relationships, and arrest beggars. Offenders could be jailed for up to six months.

Yesterday Mr Musharraf's lawyers made their opening arguments at a supreme court hearing, where they hope to persuade judges the law is unconstitutional. Analysts say they have a good chance of success.

The bill was rushed through the frontier provincial assembly by the MMA, a coalition of hardline religious parties that swept to power on an anti-US platform in 2002. The MMA has banned music in public places, pulled down adverts that show images of women, and prohibited male doctors from seeing female patients.

Now the prospect of stick-wielding officers roaming the streets of Peshawar has revived memories of the "vice and virtue" police who roamed neighbouring Afghanistan under the Taliban.

The hisbah law's more unusual provisions require the police to eradicate palmistry and sorcery, calibrate weights and measures, and "advise" children who are disobedient to their parents.

Supporters argue that it also safeguards the rights of women and minorities by outlawing such practices as so-called honour killing.

"I am very proud of this bill," said Samia Raheel Qazi, a parliamentarian and the daughter of the MMA leader, Qazi Hussain Ahmed. "It provides total protection for women."

Critics counter that the MMA is using the law to win votes in local elections this month. "They are trying to isolate us from the rest of the country," said the Peshawari women's rights activist Maimoona Noor. "It is completely unacceptable."

There are concerns that human rights are being eroded in the area. Last month an activist and her teenage daughter were shot dead by presumed extremists in the town of Dir.

"I have been at family weddings where police barged in because we were playing music," said Tariq Ahmad Khan of the Human Rights Commission. "You think, 'What the hell is going on?'"

The controversy is the latest clash in the battle between Pakistan's moderates and radicals. International attention focused on Pakistan again last month after revelations that two of the London bombers had links with local extremists.

The bill is unlikely to become law, analysts say. "I think the supreme court will reject it for being unconstitutional - which it is," said Talat Masood, a retired army general, in Islamabad.

But the furore highlighted the perils of allowing Islamists to wield power, he added; Mr Musharraf allied himself with the MMA in 2003 when he needed its support for a constitutional amendment cementing his powers.

"The fact they can propose a legal system that is so out of tune with the 21st century highlights a very dangerous trend," Mr Masood said. "If it is not reversed, Pakistan is in big trouble."