Rights leader seeks world lawyers' help

Islamabad: The private Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has urged bar associations across the world to ask their governments to put pressure on Islamabad to release lawyers, judges and political workers arrested after the imposition of emergency rule in the country.

HRCP chairperson Asma Jehangir, who is also under house arrest in Lahore, has sent messages to associations of lawyers in major countries, calling for a forceful show of solidarity with Pakistani lawyers' struggle for establishing the rule of law. "The Musharraf government has declared martial law to settle scores with lawyers and judges. While terrorists remain on the loose and continue to occupy more space in Pakistan, senior lawyers are being tortured," she said in the message.

HRCP secretary general Syed Iqbal Haider told a news conference that the emergency was an assault on independent judiciary.