Islamabad: Pakistani lawyers abandoned their legal tomes and took to the streets of the capital on Wednesday, yelling slogans and punching the air to protest President Pervez Musharraf's purge of the judiciary.
Chanting "Go Musharraf Go", members of the Islamabad Bar Association announced they were cutting their work day in half indefinitely until Musharraf reinstates a host of judges he deposed to fend off challenges to his re-election.
This appears most unlikely for now.
Lawyers have spearheaded protests against Musharraf since he tried to sack the chief justice in March and then imposed emergency rule in November, suspended the constitution and purged the Supreme Court. But they say the nation's politicians have let them down.
Unconstitutional
"We want the judges who have been removed illegally and unconstitutionally from their offices ... to be reinstated, and the constitution should be restored and the fundamental rights of the people should be restored," said Haroon Ur Rashid, president of the Islamabad Bar Association.
"Until then we will continue our protest," he said. "Until the reinstatement of the other judges, we will not appear before the High Courts and Supreme Court of Pakistan."
At 11am, lawyers in traditional black suits and ties and white shirts left the court rooms and offices at the city's district court complex and marched around them, extending a symbolic hourly boycott observed in recent weeks.
Some staged a token hunger strike, foregoing lunch. Lawyers boycotted the courts elsewhere, including in Peshawar in the northwest. Lawyers in the southern financial hub of Karachi continued to observe a one-hour work stoppage, and were expected to stage a full-day boycott today.
House arrest
Musharraf has freed more than 5,000 lawyers and opposition activists rounded up after he declared the emergency, but several Supreme Court judges including deposed Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry are still being held under house arrest.
"This is amounting to illegal confinement on the part of the present government!" said Syed Mohammad Tayyab, the Islamabad Bar's general secretary.
Lawyers in Lahore are boycotting high court proceedings, and yesterday protested outside the official residence of a deposed high court judge ordered to vacate the property. The judge had a heart attack after receiving the order, and was taken to hospital, a lawyer said.
Some civilians left waiting outside the courts in Islamabad were frustrated, saying it was they who would lose out.
