Article

2007-12-05 India-Pakistan

Code Pink leader and fellow activist get busted in Pakistan

Pakistan sees red over Code Pink activists' antics
Pakistani authorities yesterday ordered the deportation of the leader of the feminist U.S. antiwar group Code Pink, who was in Lahore to join protests against the emergency rule imposed by President Pervez Musharraf, according to a spokeswoman for the group. Medea Benjamin, a co-founder of the group, said she was arrested at a student demonstration by agents of the Pakistan Inter-Services Intelligence and detained for about four hours before being released with orders to leave the country this morning. "I'm OK. A little shaken up," Ms. Benjamin told The Washington Times by telephone from her hotel in Lahore. "They mistreated us."

Golly. Wotta surprise. That's never happened before, has it?

Ms. Benjamin said she feared for her life as the agents held her at gunpoint in a car speeding through the city to the police station. "I thought I was going to die in the car," she said. "They totally terrorized us."

Pakistani authorities also detained and then ordered the deportation of Tighe Barry, a longtime Code Pink activist who was participating in the students' rally outside the Lahore Press Club. "It's a sad state of affairs when the Pakistani government, a government that is trying to portray itself to the West as democratic, tries to harass and deport U.S. human rights activists," Ms. Benjamin said at the press club before her arrest. "If they do this to us, who have the protection of being U.S. citizens, imagine what they do to their own citizens."

Code Pink activists are arrested regularly in the U.S. for disrupting congressional hearings on the war, targeting Democrats and Republicans alike with protests. A Code Pink activist was arrested in October after rushing up to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, wrapping her arms around Miss Rice and screaming "war criminal" as she displayed her red-painted hands.

Ms. Benjamin and Mr. Barry have been in Pakistan since Nov. 25 to support opponents of the emergency rule, including lawyers, judges and students. Earlier, they conducted a 24-hour vigil outside the home of lawyer Aitzaz Ahsan, who is under house arrest.

Ms. Benjamin said her ordeal in Pakistan had not changed her view of the protest she leads in the United States. Rather, she said, she was inspired by the struggle against emergency rule imposed Nov. 3 by Mr. Musharraf. "We'll probably be doing a protest at the Pakistan Embassy as soon as we get back to D.C.," Ms. Benjamin said. Ms. Benjamin and Mr. Barry plan to fly back to Washington today.

This article starring:
Aitzaz Ahsan
Code Pink
Medea Benjamin
Tighe Barry

Posted by Delphi 2007-12-05 13:16|| || Front Page|| [11135 views ] Top

#1 What? No stint as a human shield?

Posted by danking70 2007-12-05 14:05|| 2007-12-05 14:05|| Front Page Top

#2 Geez, Medea. Here you are trying to save their Muzzie asses and you get tossed in a cop car and terrorized. Don't the wog bastards know who you are!
Where's a bulldozer when ya need one...

Posted by tu3031 2007-12-05 14:27|| 2007-12-05 14:27|| Front Page Top

#3 So who finances their little junket to Pak-Land?

Posted by Alaska Paul">Alaska Paul 2007-12-05 14:30|| 2007-12-05 14:30|| Front Page Top

#4 tu beat me to it: All the D-9s are in the shop.....

Posted by USN,Ret. 2007-12-05 14:30|| 2007-12-05 14:30|| Front Page Top

#5 These people are insane. An excellent way to get their heads chopped off. They are not dealing with SFPD outside the Pelosi mansion.

Posted by Excalibur 2007-12-05 15:17|| 2007-12-05 15:17|| Front Page Top

#6 I noticed that there was no mention of whether of not Ms.Benjamin was wearing the appropriate headgear while protesting.

Posted by Delphi 2007-12-05 15:29|| 2007-12-05 15:29|| Front Page Top

#7 "If they do this to us, who have the protection of being U.S. citizens, imagine what they do to their own citizens."

It is a ditzy assumption that American citizens have any protection in Pakistan!

Posted by Danielle 2007-12-05 15:30|| 2007-12-05 15:30|| Front Page Top

#8 Anyone who thinks they are outside a country's laws just because they are an American Citizen is just plain stupid.

Posted by Deacon Blues">Deacon Blues 2007-12-05 15:54|| 2007-12-05 15:54|| Front Page Top

#9 I think a taste of the third world is what many of these folks need. Hopefully they'll go protest China next.

Posted by rjschwarz 2007-12-05 16:08|| 2007-12-05 16:08|| Front Page Top

#10 They should've drove her up to Peshawar or Swat. And dropped her off.
Good luck, uncovered infidel lady...

Posted by tu3031 2007-12-05 16:14|| 2007-12-05 16:14|| Front Page Top

#11 "If they do this to us, who have the protection of being U.S. citizens, imagine what they do to their own citizens."

So now they are American? Pity it is not possible to revoke their citizenships and give gthem Pakistani citizenship. They shhould be happy to no longer belong to the racist, fascist, oil thirsty America America

Posted by JFM">JFM 2007-12-05 16:17|| 2007-12-05 16:17|| Front Page Top

#12 yjcmtsu.

Too bad they didn't keep her.

Posted by Whomong Guelph4611 2007-12-05 16:27|| 2007-12-05 16:27|| Front Page Top

#13 proof that Perv and the ISI are Anti-American - they returned this trash, alive

Posted by Frank G">Frank G 2007-12-05 17:39|| 2007-12-05 17:39|| Front Page Top

#14 Anyone who thinks they are outside a country's laws just because they are an American Citizen is just plain stupid.

It's the natural cognizant discordance of the mind of the left. Somehow in all their denunciation's of 'American Imperialism', it doesn't dawn on them that the extension of one's own laws across someone elses' sovereign borders constitutes IMPERIALISM. This however is not hypocrisy because there is no principle for the left other than POWER.

Posted by Procopius2k 2007-12-05 17:49|| 2007-12-05 17:49|| Front Page Top

#15 "I'm OK."

Too bad.

"They mistreated us."

Quelle surprise. You mean they didn't act like the Fascist BusHitler Regime™ and politely put up with your shit?

"They totally terrorized us."

Good!

"If they do this to us, who have the protection of being U.S. citizens"

But I though you were ashamed of being Amerikkan. Interesting how you embrace it when you need it....

Here's a clue: Don't go to another country - one full of people who hate women and want to kill them for breathing - and pull your Leftist shit, and maybe you won't get "mistreated."

Loon.

Posted by Barbara Skolaut">Barbara Skolaut 2007-12-05 17:52|| http://ariellestjohndesigns.com/]">[http://ariellestjohndesigns.com/] 2007-12-05 17:52|| Front Page Top

#16 Anyone who thinks they are outside a country's laws just because they are an American Citizen is just plain stupid.

Well, that would describe Medea and her acolytes to a "T"! Too bad she could not have had a wee taste of some real torture or terror.

Posted by Spats Spinegum3184 2007-12-05 18:39|| 2007-12-05 18:39|| Front Page Top

#17 Why isn't this code pink lady not protesting over in Iran against human rights violations by Ahmadinejad's abuse of men who were pink panties?

Posted by Victor Emmanuel Whusoque4891 2007-12-05 19:58|| 2007-12-05 19:58|| Front Page Top

#18 #17 Victor - because they're not completely stupid.

Posted by Barbara Skolaut">Barbara Skolaut 2007-12-05 20:47|| http://ariellestjohndesigns.com/]">[http://ariellestjohndesigns.com/] 2007-12-05 20:47|| Front Page Top

#19 I guess now Medea really is an arrested adolescent.

Posted by mrp 2007-12-05 22:20|| 2007-12-05 22:20|| Front Page Top

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