The images were as surreal as they were disturbing: photos of lawyers dressed in dark suits and ties, battling the police in the streets of Pakistan, beaten and arrested as they protest the suspension of their constitution, the imposition of emergency rule and the arrest of Pakistani Supreme Court justices. Pakistani Gen. Perves Musharraf's recent power grab has so eviscerated the rule of law that even the Dallas Bar Association issued a formal statement on Nov. 8 to express its outrage and show solidarity with legal brethren under foreign fire. But for Asad Rahman, a Pakistani-American and Dallas lawyer, the situation in Pakistan is deeply personal. Rahman comes from a proud legal tradition -- his great great grandfather was a lawyer in Pakistan, and a relative, though somewhat distant, still practices there today. “Anyone who is Pakistani in America has a special interest in this situation,” says Rahman, a 2006 graduate of Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law. “We have an executive there who, in his desperate effort to preserve power, is compromising the judiciary,” Rahman says. “The constitution only prescribes for the president to be a civilian leader, not a military one. He wants to be both and lawyers are standing in his way.” On Nov. 12, Rahman flew to Pakistan for two weeks to attend a family wedding. His wife had arrived earlier, and he says she phoned home to the United States to ask for news about the events in Pakistan. A news blackout there has prevented Pakistanis from gaining information about what was going on around them. Says Rahman, “When I mentioned to friends in Dallas that I was going, they told me not to tell anyone that I was a lawyer. They felt the situation was too dangerous.” Rahman says he doubts he will follow that advice. Instead,. he says he intends “to find out as much information about the situation as I can without damaging my safety.” Then he will follow up with Tex Parte and report back what he learns.
-- Mark Donald
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