By DPA
Islamabad : Chanting slogans against President Pervez Musharraf, thousands of Pakistani lawyers held rallies across the country Thursday to protest his forcible removal of chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry late last year.
“The lawyers’ community is observing complete boycott of the court proceedings and demonstrations are being held in every city and town of the country to express solidarity with the chief justice,” said Athar Minallah, a senior leader of Islamabad Bar Association.
“We are demanding the restoration of 60 unconstitutionally removed senior judges, an end to the dictatorship of Musharraf and the release of all detained justices and lawyers,” he said.
Chaudhry was sacked together with many of his colleagues Nov 3 when Musharraf imposed state of emergency and suspended the constitution. The president argued the judiciary was hindering his fight against terrorism.
The opponents said the move aimed mainly at preventing the Supreme Court from ruling against Musharraf’s candidacy for the presidential vote for his second five-year term.
After dumping the highest court, the president packed it with his handpicked judges and took oath before resigning as military chief and lifting emergency.
But the senior judges and dozens of representatives of the lawyers remain under house arrest.
Riot police and paramilitary troops cordoned the area around the high court building in the southern port city of Karachi to prevent the lawyers from gathering. But a large number of lawyers held a protest rally and chanted slogans like “Go, Musharraf go”, “Death to dictatorship” and “We want rule of law.”
Scores of opposition workers, rights activists and civil society representatives also joined the lawyers in a similar protest in Lahore, the capital of eastern Punjab province.
The demonstrations came days after Musharraf repeatedly accused Chaudhry for being “inept and corrupt” in his interactions with the European leaders and media during his four-nation EU visit last week.
The deposed judge rejected the allegations Wednesday in an open letter to several European leaders, saying 60 senior judges were dismissed at the whim of one person.
“I have failed to discover any such event in medieval times under any emperor, king or sultan or even when a dictator has had full military sway over any country in more recent times,” he wrote. “But this incredible outrage has happened in the 21st century at the hands of an extremist general out on ‘charm offensive’ of western capitals.”
Musharraf paid heavily for his conflict with Chaudhry. He has recently seen a sharp slump in his popularity, which stands at its lowest since he took over in a bloodless military coup in 1999.