IMRAN ARRESTED

There is news that Imran Khan has been arrested by the police and placed back in home detention. I note they arrested him in a way that would minimize the opportunity for publicity, which leads me to think that just maybe in the back of the minds of the arresting officers there is the theory of the Gandhi.

As dictators inevitably do, Musharraf with the tacit consent of his ally in the White House, is ramping up repression. B Bhutto in the circumstances has made what seems to me the only sensible response in calling for a government of national unity to organize elections. P Musharraf cannot now either call off the state of emergency or have full and fair elections. He is in a place from which he cannot win unless the opposition completely caves in.

I think something has got to give. This may well be the perfect situation for Gandhian political strategies to be employed, which if it transpired would not be without historical irony.

POSTSCRIPT: 17 November 2007

There is more on the arrest of Imran Khan by Saeed Shah in The Scotsman, and of the political situation and background in Pakistan, including a non-complementary view of B Bhutto as a political player by Tony Karon (Both references from The War in Context).

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