Judges who defied president continue to be under detention

Islamabad: There are some voices President Pervez Musharraf clearly fears more than others after three weeks of emergency rule in Pakistan.

Judges and lawyers whose interpretation of the law posed the most serious challenge to Musharraf's authority remain either under house arrest or in prison.

Thousands of other opponents detained were freed this week, as Musharraf responded to intense pressure from the international community and Pakistan opposition parties to reverse the authoritarian steps he took on November 3.

Days away from the end of his first term as president and a constitutional obligation to give up his army post, Musharraf's main objective in imposing emergency rule was to get rid of judges before they got rid of him.

Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry and a handful of other judges stayed inside the Supreme Court the night the emergency was imposed, stubbornly refusing to sign-off on Musharraf's authoritarian action.

Escorted home

They were dismissed and escorted home by security officials.

"These seven judges are our real heroes," said Nasim Zehra, a political analyst. "We can't let them be lost."

"The issue of the dismissed judges has to be resolved because these are the men who after 60 years stood up," she said.

Chaudhry remains under house arrest with his family at their official residence in Islamabad, as do other judges.

Rana Bhagwandas, the sacked deputy chief justice, has tested the limits of his custody by visiting his dentist.

Aitzaz Ahsan, the lawyer who successfully defended Chaudhry after Musharraf suspended him in March, is in Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi, the garrison town next door to Islamabad.

Ahsan's wife Bushra said the authorities were putting every obstacle in his way to stop him filing nomination papers by Novembebr 26 for a parliamentary election in January, and there was nowhere she could petition for her husband.