FROM A RINGSIDE SEAT

The 20th session of the Senate, requisitioned by the opposition, commenced Monday night in keeping with all the traits of our parliamentary traditions. As expected, it started 80 minutes behind schedule, points of order dominated proceedings and there was also a walkout. But even then the very first sitting witnessed members taking contentious positions, holding out the promise of a session resonating with sound and fury. Since being a Monday it was the private members day, which means no question hour.
The first thing after the recitation from Holy Quran was the oath taking by the MMA senator-elect Qari Muhammad Abdullah, who would fill the seat vacated by Commander Khalilur Rehman.
That was followed by unanimously passed resolutions condoning the deaths of Pope John Paul II and ex-Speaker NWFP assembly Hidayatullah Chamkani. World lost a champion of human rights; one who was a symbol of inter-faith harmony and the first ever Pope who set foot in a mosque. But the story that Maulana Samiul Haq narrated on the floor of the Senate about his ordeals, first at Brussels airport and then while leaving London, strongly suggest that the mission of late Pope still remains largely unaccomplished.
Moved by the ruling party whip Kamil Ali Agha the House also adopted a resolution expressing hope that in future such "unpleasant incidents" as had happened in case of Maulana Samiul Haq would be avoided. Under rules if any debate were to take place on this issue it should have been before the adoption of resolution, but both Mushahid Hussain, who led the eight-member senators' delegation of which the Maulana Samiul Haq was member, and the Maulana himself were keen to give their perspectives.
Maulana Samiul Haq's story was quite painful: not that he faced humiliation at the Brussels airport and at London as he was departing for home he was stopped and searched. In his words, he had been given the boarding card and was on his way to board the plane when security personnel took him away.
"They asked me to show all the money I had. I had about a thousand or eleven hundred dollars which I put on the table... Then I was asked to open my brief case. They took out every thing from it, one by one including my telephone directory, and displayed it on the table...Then they took away these things somewhere else and came back an hour and half later."
State Minister for Foreign Affairs, Khusro Bukhtiar responded by promising to take up the latest part of the Maulana's ordeal with the British authorities and would apprise the House of the latest on it on Tuesday. But the opposition would not let go the government that easily. Leader of Opposition in the House, Raza Rabbani, stood up on a point of order, to assert that the humiliation that the delegation suffered was the wrong policies of the government in general and the Foreign Office in particular.
While planning the visit the Foreign Office should have informed the Senate of the "organisations, which are on the watch list," and also when Maulana Samiul Haq was stopped at Brussels the tour should have been discontinued. "All this is happening because when in Pakistan a 'thanedar' can beat up parliamentarians what respect would they command outside the country?"
The House also saw some sparring between a senator of MQM and his MMA counterpart about recent incidents of violence but before it could burst into a big show, Chairman Muhammadmian Soomro quite cleverly steered clear of it. He gave the floor to Raza Rabbani to speak on a point of order, as probably agreed upon between the leaders in the pre-sitting meeting in his chamber. In his speech, he argued that "political workers are being subjected to state terrorism" under a deliberate policy", and that policy, he claimed, is the handwork of ruling PML that is controlling the federal government.
Accusing the federal government of subverting the opposition strike calls, arrests of political workers under the anti-terrorist laws and detention of women MPs, Rabbani then led the opposition out of the House on a token walkout.
On returning to the House the opposition was given floor to debate political situation in the country. Speeches by Raza Muhammad Khan Raza and Maulana Gul Nasseb and some minor legislative work was all that could be taken up as the night deepened, and chair adjourned the sitting to meet on Tuesday morning.