|
Pakistani protests continue
26/03/2007 14:17 - (SA)
Islamabad - Thousands of opposition party supporters on Monday protested against President Pervez Musharraf's removal of Pakistan's top judge, despite the arrest of about 1 000 people in a police crackdown.
Military ruler Musharraf is facing perhaps the most damaging political crisis of his eight years in power since the suspension of chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry on March 9.
Monday's protests were the first to be organised by an alliance of the Pakistan People's Party of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto and a faction of the Pakistan Muslim League party of Nawaz Sharif, another former premier.
About 5 000 protesters chanting "Musharraf, Dog" and other slogans gathered amid tight security near the high court in the eastern city of Lahore, witnesses said. Some burned an effigy of the president.
"This massive response to the opposition's protest call is the beginning of a movement against President Musharraf and his government," said Naheed Khan, a female legislator from Bhutto's party.
Police said 4 000 officers were on guard in Lahore, including special squads and police commandos, to monitor "miscreants".
Another 3 000 demonstrators in the southwestern city of Quetta called on Musharraf to step down and allow the formation of an interim government and free polls.
Musharraf must 'step down'
In the northwestern city of Peshawar the leader of Pakistan's powerful coalition of Islamic parties, Qazi Hussain Ahmed, told about 1 000 people that Musharraf had violated the constitution.
"The only way out for him is to step down," Hussain said.
Lawyers observed a strike in the central city of Multan and boycotted courts on Monday.
Police made dozens of raids on opposition supporters in central Punjab province at the weekend and overnight to keep the protests from getting too large.
"We have arrested around 1 000 overnight and at the weekend. Around 200-plus were in Lahore with the rest in Faisalabad, Multan and other towns in Punjab," a senior police official said on condition of anonymity.
Most were from the parties of Bhutto and Sharif.
The pair were bitter political rivals in the 1990s but formed an uneasy alliance after their exile by Musharraf, and have seized on popular discontent at Musharraf's sacking of justice Chaudhry.
Musharraf late on Sunday urged opposition parties not to extract "political mileage" from what he said was a purely constitutional matter, a government statement said.
- AFP
|
News
