Lawyers, civil activists who had gathered at the Lahore High Court this monday to protest on Human Rights Day made the event more interesting by shouting slogans in Punjabi Tappa Style. Have a taste of it:

ballay ballay,
ho ballay ballay,
asan judgaan di bahali waikhni,
PCO dian jarran kata kay,
judgaan di bahali waikhni

(We want to see the judiciary restored; we will uproot the Provisional Constitutional Order)

ballay ballay,
ho ballay ballay,
bhae shehrian ne paye wakhtay,
policaan beh gyan thaanay jaa kay,
shehrian ne paye wakhtay

(The citizens have rose to the occasion and now the police is in trouble)

ballay ballay,
ho ballay ballay,
bhae choraan nay judge dak laye,
saday bolan tay pabandian la kay,
choraan nay judge dak laye

(The thieves have caught the judges and put a ban on freedom of expression)

ballay ballay,
ho ballay ballay,
bhae tor muzahmat di,
kalay kapray tay kalay banner,
tor muzahmat di

(Look how well the protest is being carried out by the lawyers and other civil society members)

Full Story: DT

“You will see the power of the powerless – very soon!” – Roedad Khan

Download here.

And just when I think that our self-appointed pseudo-messiah can’t go any bonkers than he already has, he actually ends up proving me wrong – that too, by a mile! “I’m no dictator” is what he told BBC in an interview a few days back – who is he kidding?!? Every single order/amendment he has passed has been absolutely against the spirit of democracy and yet he claims to be a Champion of Democracy – talk about sordid egos!

It seems a new bad news is lined up for us everyday – what did we get yesterday? A ban on political debate in our colleges and universities! Why? Because students have been in the news a lot recently for the peaceful protests that they’ve been organizing against the martial law.
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Spread the word!

Event: Student Protest Planning Committee (Lahore Chapter) Meeting
When: 22nd November, 07:00 pm
Where: Minigolf, Gulberg
To Bring: Friends from different universities/colleges/schools who are interested in organizing.

Source: The Emergency Times

UPDATE: ARY One World is back on air! Salman Iqbal, CEO of ARY TV Network, has said that the re-starting of transmission hasn’t been done under ANY deal with the Government. More later…

So is ARY One World! Well, this isn’t exactly a ‘breaking news’ or something but I was amazed how many of my friends were unaware of their online live video streaming… those who thought Geo News had been completely blacked out would be glad to know that they can still watch the channel online. Use the links below or log on to their respective websites.

Geo News is currently testing on a new frequency. If you have a satellite dish antenna pointed towards Intelsat10/PAS10 then tune into the following frequency:
Frequency: 4154
Symbol Rate: 4410
Polarity: Horizontal
FEC: 3/4

Do read up a very good media-related post by IMB‘s Fatima: Where Have All The Good Men Gone?

See I’m not a well informed person. Or a person with brilliant mind needed to figure out that emergency is gonna end soon. Reasons:

1 – People are being freed.
2 – Musharraf went to KSA for important talks (whatever it could be)
3 – Bush has also (in hidden words) given green signal in his last speech (which I don’t but many can relate)
4 – Finally IK is released

Why the hell (with due respect), Benazir is issuing the following statement:

Of course she wants to take full advantage of these facts in her own name and now (just before emergency could be lifted up – I wish) she is speaking out in all the Press and Media channels in rather an ORDERING tone: ‘Immediately end the emergency’.

Well, I have no conviction to run an anti-benazir campaign here. But indeed, she well knows how to play with words, media and knows well when to hit where! :)

However, IK’s (free from prison) story is down there somewhere, But BB’s demand is publishing with flying colours right on the top on Jang. Do I sound jealous!? :)

* Anyways, I hope it all ends soon. Highly improbable but I really wish to see IK win.

* My Biased opinion, not necessarily backed by Lahore Metblogs Guilders specifically.

What the anti-IJT students of University of the Punjab demand of the University administration in specific and the Government at large:

Students of University of the Punjab continued protests against IJT’s existence this Monday. This time there were more than 1,500 participants of them who marched within the university premises upto the Vice Chancellor’s office.

Girls and boys were holding banners and playcards with their demands written on them while copies of anti-IJT movement’s objectives were distributed among the students and faculty. The document asked for removal of all political elements from the University’s campus and hostels as well as formation of a neutral students’ body with elected members good in academics as its caretakers.

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Participants of the rally were later joined by some senior professors, deans and directors of different institutes and university departments. Together they staged a sit-in protest in front of the Vice Chancellor’s office and asked for their demands to be fulfilled. The VC came out to deliver a lukewarm speech promising to remove political elements from the prestigious instituion though, did not answer the students’ call to openly speak on Jamiat. This was widely seen as a proof of the VC’s close association with the IJT and JI for he is known as an avid sympathizer of Jamaat himself.

All went safe except for an incident at the University’s Institute of Communication Studies where some members of the faculty including the institute’s director were manhandled and roughed up apparently by the anti-IJT protestors. People are strongly looking at it as a conspiracy by some elements who have joined the anti-IJT movement to create such situations and give this, otherwise a neutral and peaceful movement, a bad label.

Students of the Punjab University have decided to hold protests every Monday and Thursday until the IJT and its influence on campus is totally expelled.

Visuals of Jemima Khan protesting in front of the Pakistan High Commission in London have been flashing over the world’s media for quite some days. Yesterday, she again joined a group of some 500 British-Pakistanis to ask for her ex-husband’s release and return to democratic rule in Pakistan.

And, stood in front of her, Imran’s younger tiger :)

Photo courtesy of Daily Mail

Read more on the story here and here.

On behalf of all its participants, the Students Movement at LUMS has clarified its position on various points:

Press Release, Tuesday 15/11/2007

“As our movement gains in strength, support, momentum and therefore, media attention, the students of the protest movement at the Lahore University of Management Sciences would like to clarify our position on a number of points.

Our movement is fundamentally a non-partisan, civil society movement which was begun by students last week as a spontaneous reaction against the imposition of a state of emergency in our country. We are united in a clear and principled commitment to the reinstatement of the judiciary and the restoration of the Constitution and of basic civil rights, the release of illegally detained prisoners and an end to preposterous curbs on the media. Our aim is to uphold and defend the autonomy of the judiciary in Pakistan. As we increase communication with students from other educational institutions in the country, we are confident and hopeful that we can all unite behind a particular principle – the critical necessity of the sovereignty of the judiciary for sustainable political and social development in Pakistan.”

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