World | Pakistan
Pakistan warns think-tank of promoting sedition
Pakistan on Saturday accused an international think-tank of 'promoting sedition' through a report urging President Pervez Musharraf to resign.
- Agencies
- Published: 12:21 January 5, 2008
- Image Credit: Reuters
- Supporters of slain Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto look at a makeshift shrine near the spot where she was killed in Rawalpindi.
Islamabad: Pakistan on Saturday accused an international think-tank of “promoting sedition'' through a report urging President Pervez Musharraf to resign.
In the report, the International Crisis Group (IRC) said Musharraf was “a serious liability, seen as complicit'' in the death of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated in December 27.
The group called on the United States to use the Pakistani army to persuade Musharraf to step down.
In a statement issued on Saturday, the government said the report "amounts to promoting sedition" and the group "neither has the credentials, nor the credibility and lacks representational standing specially on Pakistan's national affairs" to comment on Pakistan.
Sedition is a serious offense in Pakistan, but it was not clear whether the government intended to launch a criminal investigation into the IRC.
The IRC report warned that unless Musharraf steps down, "the international community could face the nightmare of a nuclear-armed, Muslim country descending into civil war."
A team of officers from Britain's Scotland Yard arrived in Pakistan on Friday to join the investigation into Bhutto's murder.
Bhutto supporters have accused government agencies of involvement in the murder and are demanding a UN investigation into the attack.
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