In the past months, as the crisis in Pakistan has worsened, key figures in the Bush administration, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, have spoken out about the need for free and fair elections and have condemned extremism. Yet they've continued through-out to support the man who poll after poll show to be the least popular public figure in Pakistan, less so even than Osama bin Laden: President Pervez Musharraf. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte went so far as to call Musharraf an "indispensable ally" just days after the general declared de facto martial law and suspended Pakistan's Constitution.
All the while, U.S. officials have ignored a man who lives a mere stone's throw from Musharraf. This man's exclusion might seem understandable: barbed wire surrounds his home, the phone lines are cut and the gate is padlocked from the outside. Yet he is no dangerous criminal. Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry is the chief justice of Pakistan. He's also one of the most popular figures in the country, according to recent polls, and its best hope for returning to a democratic path.
Chaudhry was an unlikely figure to become public enemy No. 1. He was appointed chief justice in June 2005 by Musharraf himself. Once on the bench, though Chaudhry proved independent, he was no iconoclast. Yet he acted in ways that made Pakistan's powerful elites nervous. He expanded the jurisdiction of his court in the domain of human rights, refusing to tolerate police abuses. He reached out to victims of forced marriages and Pakistan's unjust rape laws. He blocked a number of land developments that would have harmed the environment. And in the process, he made some powerful enemies: many of the developers he stymied were Musharraf cronies or Army officers.
Full article @ http://www.newsweek.com/id/107546
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