the_taliban_shuffle_-_kim_barker

I
CHAPTER 15
GOD SAVE THE QUEEN
walked o the plane exhausted but excited. Finally, I would be able
to relax with Dave. Finally, we could do couples’ things we had never
experienced in Pakistan, radical activities like holding hands in
public. Finally, we could see what was between us.
But as soon as I spotted Dave in Heathrow, I knew something was
wrong. He wore a sad smile and patted me like he was putting out a
fire.
“What? What happened?”
“I’m sorry, babe. Musharraf just declared an emergency.”
I felt as if someone had kicked me in the head.
“No. No. I can’t.”
“You can. You have to,” he said.
I felt sorry for us, sorrier for Pakistan. Every month seemed to bring a
fresh crisis, a new attempt to drive the country into a brick wall at a
hundred miles an hour. Musharraf had suspended the constitution,
actually red Chief Justice Chaudhry instead of just suspending him,
suspended the country’s other independent top judges unless they
signed a new oath, and placed them all under house arrest, blocking o
the entire judges’ enclave with riot police, barricades, and barbed wire.
In a hilarious justication, Musharraf said he declared the emergency
because of the increased threat of Islamic militants and interference by
the judiciary. It seemed much more likely that Musharraf wanted to
preempt an expected ruling by the supreme court that would have
tossed out his recent reelection.
The country’s security services started rounding up the bad guys. No,
not the nefarious Islamic miscreants Musharraf usually complained
about. Instead, the tin men hauled away thousands of lawyers,
opposition politicians, and human-rights activists. From London, I