Mischievous statements and the rule of law

I hadn’t quite grasped the scale of Pervez Musharraf’s ‘coup within a coup’. The state of emergency, the dismissed judges, the arrested opposition activists – these have been well covered in the media.

But on top of this, last Saturday the law was changed to give the army powers to court-martial civilians:

the Army can now try civilians on charges ranging from treason, sedition and attack on army personnel to ‘assaulting the president with intent to compel or restrain the exercise of any lawful power’ and ‘giving statements conducive to public mischief’.

The new law will be retrospective, dating back to January 2003.

(Via Irfan Husain.)