Islamabad police fire tear gas against anti-corruption protesters

PanARMENIAN.Net - Police in Islamabad have fired warning shots in the air and used tear gas against anti-corruption protesters on a march led by cleric Tahirul Qadri, according to BBC News.

The clashes broke out briefly after demonstrators threw stones at security forces outside parliament.

Qadri, who is calling for electoral reform, left the city of Lahore on Sunday with thousands of supporters, and reached Islamabad late on Monday, Jan 14. Authorities accuse him of trying to postpone elections due by May.

The Sunni cleric wants the military and judiciary to be involved in installing a caretaker government to oversee the forthcoming elections.

The government is due to disband in March, and elections must then be held within six weeks.

Qadri's march has been otherwise peaceful so far, but live television coverage on Tuesday showed police firing shots into the air and using tear gas to push back protesters who were hurling stones at officers.

Qadri's spokesman told Reuters that the demonstrators were trying to prevent security forces from arresting the cleric.

Reports of injuries have not yet been verified independently.

Earlier, authorities in the capital had said Qadri and his supporters would not be allowed into the city center. The government had also warned that militants could target the marchers.

An extra 15,000 police were deployed and many parts of the capital sealed off.

"I will give [the government] a deadline until tomorrow to dissolve the federal parliament and provincial assemblies. After that, the people's assembly here will take their own decision," Qadri said.

By the time his procession reached Islamabad, an estimated 10,000 people had joined the slow-moving convoy of cars, buses and trucks - more crowds were waiting in Islamabad to greet the cleric.

Tahirul Qadri's flamboyant preaching style and expensive television campaigns have raised his profile in Pakistan in recent weeks.

But there has also been widespread speculation that he is backed by Pakistan's powerful military, and is being used to reassert the army's control over Pakistani politics.

Qadri has rejected this allegation. "I have no link with military institutions," he said earlier. "I am one of the biggest staunch believers... of democracy in the whole world."

The preacher was a prominent supporter of former army chief Pervez Musharraf when he seized power in a coup in 1999, and served in the national assembly under him before moving to Canada in 2006, where he ran a charity.

In December, he returned to Pakistan and was able to mobilize tens of thousands of supporters at a rally in Lahore, but it remains unclear how much support he enjoys across the country.