Pat Dollard | Young Americans

Last time they did this…..

Here we go again….

KARACHI, Jun. 9, 2008 (Reuters) — About 1,000 Pakistani lawyers and political activists gathered on Monday for the start of a cross-country rally to demand the restoration of judges sacked by President Pervez Musharraf.

Lawyers have spearheaded opposition to Musharraf since the former army chief tried to dismiss the country’s then top judge, Iftikhar Chaudhry, last year. Chaudhry and dozens of other judges were purged after Musharraf declared emergency rule in November.

The protest, due to reach Islamabad on Friday, will increase pressure on staunch U.S. ally Musharraf to step down. He has been isolated since his allies were defeated in a February general election and some opponents are demanding he quit and face trial.

“We are out to save the judiciary. We are out to save the country,” Mehmood-ul-Hassan, president of the Karachi Bar Association told the rally as lawyers chanted “hang Musharraf” in a street in the centre of Karachi.

Dubbed a “long march” even though the lawyers will travel in a motor convoy from Karachi to Multan, where the rally to Islamabad will officially begin, it is the first major protest the new government will face.

Sardar Asmatullah Khan, president of the Rawalpindi Bar Association, said the lawyers might hold a sit-in outside parliament in Islamabad.

Both sides have vowed to keep the peace, with the government saying the lawyers have the right to protest. But in a nuclear-armed country plagued by militant bombs and other violence, trouble can not be ruled out.

The protest could also trigger even deeper splits in the fragile coalition led by the party of assassinated former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, which is seen as dragging its feet on the restoration of Chaudhry and other sacked judges.

Pakistani stocks fell 1.72 percent on Monday on worry about new taxes in this week’s budget but dealers said political uncertainty was also unnerving investors. The main stock index has fallen about 8 percent since January.

POSSIBLE SIT-IN

Bhutto’s widower Asif Ali Zardari, has said his Pakistan People’s Party, which leads the coalition, does not recognize Musharraf as a constitutional president, and has drafted a constitutional package that would reduce him to a figurehead role and eventually lead to the reinstatement of the judges.

Nawaz Sharif, the prime minister Musharraf overthrew in 1999 and who leads the second largest party in the National Assembly, wants Musharraf impeached or tried for treason. He insists Chaudhry and other sacked judges get their jobs back immediately.

Analysts say, if reinstated, Chaudhry is likely to take up legal challenges to Musharraf’s presidency that could leader to his ouster. He could also take up challenges to an amnesty that wiped out corruption cases against Zardari.

Sharif, who clashed with the judiciary when he was prime minister in the late 1990s, has pulled his party members out the cabinet over the delay in reinstating the judges.

He is supporting the rally and was returning from a trip to London to take part, a party spokesman said.

Analysts said it was not clear how much support the rally would get from ordinary Pakistanis struggling with surging fuel and food inflation and power cuts, or if discontent over those problems would bolster support for the lawyers.

Chaudhry, who spent nearly four months under house arrest after he was purged, is due to address the rally in Multan and join it from Lahore to Islamabad.

The lawyers in Karachi boarded banner-bedecked buses and cars and drove north for a rally in Multan where on Monday about 1,500 lawyers and activists rallied. About 200 protesters demonstrated in the southwestern city of Quetta.

(Additional reporting by Asim Tanveer, Kamran Haider, Gul Yousafzai; Editing by Robert Birsel)