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Why Pakistan feels like the centre of the planet

3 April 2007, 8:18 AM

By Kylie Morris

Our biggest problem this time around in Pakistan - persuading the programme to take all the minutes we've wanted to send! It feels like everything is moving so fast here at the moment.

We began with the cricket - or more specifically, the match-fixing industry in Pakistan (and India, and Dubai). With the help of some enterprising friends in Karachi, we were able to show footage of how the gambling networks ply their trade.

We heard an on-air confession of a gambling addict - who said his love of gambling doesn't come from the sport. Rather, the sport provides him with another opportunity to win (or lose) money.

We visited the National Academy, where Pakistan's next generation of players is coached, and where Bob Woolmer used to live in Lahore.

Just for variety, I've now spent a number of days in the Jamia Hafsa madrassa in Islamabad.

More than four thousand girls are schooled there. Lately they've chosen an extreme path. They've launched their own vice and virtue patrols - and last week kidnapped a woman in the capital who they accused of running a brothel.

They held a press conference in which she made a public confession. When she was released, she retracted it. And now, she's gone into hiding for her own safety. They claim the right to do this, because the government isn't.

Male students at their brother madrassa are following the same theme. Apparently, they've taken to boarding buses on main roads, asking the driver to turn off the music, and lecturing passengers about the importance of Islamic dress.

In middle class, and moderate homes across the capital, these developments have prompted real concern. As one woman told me, she's trying to encourage her friends to march without headscarves in front of the madrassa, to demonstrate their right in a modern progressive Pakistan to dress as they will, and live as they choose.

The classrooms of the madrassa are an extraordinary sight, and few cameras have ever been allowed inside. While the girls would not normally wear veils indoors, the fact we were filming meant they did.

The politics of headscarves aside, it's tough filming in these situations. Or at least tough to tell the stories of these girls and women, without showing their faces, and their expressions. Commentators here are talking of the Talibanisation of Pakistan. Of course the Taliban burns down girls' schools in Afghanistan, so it's possibly not the right term.

Certainly though, this madrassa is exploiting the vulnerability of President Musharraf, who hasn't found it in his power to act against them, despite their provocative actions in the capital itself. Today we're keeping across developments in the hearing involving Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Iftikhar Chaudry.

Already there've been some arrests, ahead of expected protests over his sacking by the President. The matter has been postponed before, and there are suggestions the same choice might apply again tomorrow, in the hope that anger at his dismissal might pass. But that seems unlikely.

There are many theories as to why he was removed - none of them plays particularly well for the President. There's great interest in the issue, and none of the lawyers I've met seem ready to give up. Our only real obstacle - lawyers with a cause seem unable to give succinct answers.

Watch tonight and see whether that feat at least is accomplished.


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Kylie Morris

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