Lawyers vow to take anti-Musharraf drive to ‘logical end’

By Muhammad Najeeb, IANS

Islamabad : Even after loosing their battle in the Supreme Court, Pakistani lawyers – in the forefront of the anti-Musharraf campaign – say they won’t give up the struggle to stop the military ruler from becoming president for a second five-year term.


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Pervez Musharraf, who has pledged to doff the uniform after being elected as president for the second term, got a green signal from country’s top court to run for the Oct 6 ballot even while being the army chief.

The Election Commission Saturday accepted Musharraf’s re-election nomination along with papers of five other candidates, including Makhdoom Amin Fahim of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and a retired judge, Wajihuddin Ahmed.

However, the opposition and lawyers campaigning against military rule have vowed to approach the Supreme Court Monday to have Musharraf’s nomination spiked. They have also announced protests throughout the country Monday.

“Our fight is against the black laws and the dictatorship… and we’ll take it to logical end,” said Ali Ahmed Kurd, a firebrand lawyer from Balochistan who was injured and arrested Saturday when violence erupted between the lawyers and police outside the Election Commission building here.

“The real fight has (just) begun,” warned Chaudhry Aitzaz Ahsan, another leading lawyer who too was hit by the police with canes Saturday in violence that left several people injured, journalists included.

The lawyers who turned protests against the dismissal of country’s top judge, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, into a campaign against the military ruler, Saturday clashed with the police and staged protests against Musharraf’s candidacy.

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