Pakistani policemen arrest civil rights activists who were trying to march toward ousted chief justice Muhammad Chaudhry's residence during an anti-Musharraf protest in Islamabad on Sunday.
Police and paramilitaries stand guard at the junction to the president's house in Islamabad.
Authorities rounded up opposition leaders Sunday, including these political workers in Lahore.
Opposition leader Javed Hashmi flashes a victory sign as he is arrested in Multan.
Punjabi policemen scour the news while awaiting orders outside the Presidential Palace on Sunday.
WASHINGTON - Riot troops swept through Pakistan Sunday, throwing hundreds of government opponents into jail as people took to the streets to protest the martial law clampdown and the suspension of the constitution.
Government forces shut down television stations, arrested hundreds of lawyers and human rights activists, and attacked opposition rallies with tear gas and clubs as the crisis deepened in the teetering nation - one of the world's nuclear powers and a precarious ally of the U.S. in the war on terror.
In Lahore, riot police stormed a meeting and arrested 50. "They dragged us out, including women," one man said at a police station. "It's inhuman, undemocratic and a violation of human rights."
The crackdown has put the U.S. in a tough position.
"The emergency is an embarrassment for the Bush administration," said Teresita Schaffer of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. But she said the White House has few options. "They will have to keep working with the government on terrorism and Afghan-related issues," Schaffer said.
Streets around government buildings were sealed, and opposition leader and former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto charged that President Gen. Pervez Musharraf had carried out a "second coup," referring to his initial power grab in 1999.
"This is a coup conducted by Gen. Musharraf against his own regime," she said on CBS News.
Musharraf suspended the constitution and dismissed most of the Supreme Court on Saturday, just days before it was to decide the legality of his most recent election.
The Pakistani strongman cited Abraham Lincoln, saying he was clamping down to prevent extremists from taking over, the way Lincoln suspended some rights during the Civil War.
"Poor President Lincoln, he must be turning in his grave," Bhutto scoffed on "ABC News."
"Unless we can stop it, the radicals will gain in strength, and there will be horrific consequences for the people of Pakistan as well as for the people in this region, if not even beyond," she said.
The United States has been pushing for improved democracy while sending billions in aid to prop up Musharraf and crack down on Islamic terrorists.
Neither effort has gone well, as Musharraf seems certain to ignore U.S. calls to hold promised elections on Jan. 15, and Taliban and Al Qaeda forces have only gotten stronger along Pakistan's lawless border with Afghanistan.
Secretary of State Rice complained yesterday that Musharraf was moving in the wrong direction. "I think the decision sets Pakistan back in terms of the considerable progress that it had made along the road to democratic change," she said, warning she would "review" Pakistan's aid package.
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