ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN — Amid screams, scuffles and clouds of tear gas, riot police on Wednesday beat and drove back supporters of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, as opposition to President Pervez Musharraf's declaration of emergency rule spread from a vanguard of outraged lawyers to a broader base of dissent.
The confrontation outside the Pakistani parliament, in the heart of Islamabad, was some of the worst violence to hit the capital since the state of emergency went into effect Saturday night. It could presage larger-scale clashes if Bhutto and other political leaders bring their supporters into the streets and are met with force by government police and troops.
Inside parliament, pro-Musharraf lawmakers voted to endorse the army general's emergency decree.
The melee, alongside public comments by Bhutto, offered a look at what appears to be a high-stakes strategy on her part to try to pressure Musharraf into rolling back authoritarian measures and allowing the two to resume power-sharing negotiations.
"How many people can they put behind bars?" Bhutto asked, speaking at a news conference at her party headquarters. "We will produce so many that they will not have enough jails."
Spokesman Jamil Soomro said this morning that 800 party members had been arrested overnight in Punjab province.
In Washington, President Bush said he called Musharraf for the first time since emergency measures were imposed. Speaking to reporters after a meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Bush said his message to the Pakistani leader was "very plain, very easy to understand, and that is the United States wants you to have the elections as scheduled and take your uniform off."
He did not say how Musharraf, who seized power in 1999 in an army coup, responded.
Sarkozy endorsed Bush's call for elections in Pakistan, saying: "Let me remind you that this is a country of 150 million inhabitants who happen to have nuclear weapons. This is very important for us that one day we shouldn't wake up with a government, an administration in Pakistan which is in the hands of the extremists."
Until Wednesday, most demonstrations against the emergency decree had been organized by lawyers, who are furious with Musharraf for ousting most of the nation's senior judges, including the chief justice. Hundreds of barristers were arrested in protests on Monday and Tuesday; by Wednesday those demonstrations had tapered off.
