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Judge's supporters teargassed
09/03/2008 18:39 - (SA)
Islamabad - Pakistani police fired teargas at supporters of the country's sacked chief judge protesting outside his official residence in the capital on Sunday, said witnesses.
The protestors, including lawyers, political party workers and civil society activists, were stopped by riot police at the barbed barricade erected outside the residence of deposed supreme court chief judge Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry.
Police fired teargas at the protestors to disperse them and both sides threw stones at each other, said an AFP photographer.
The protesters wanted to march towards Chaudhry's residence and present him with flowers, but police stopped them, he said.
Lawyers across Pakistan observed "black-flag week" to press for Chaudhry's reinstatement, hoisted black flags over bar offices and organised conventions.
President Pervez Musharraf sacked Chaudhry on March 9 last year on misconduct charges, but the supreme court reinstated him in July.
Living under house arrest
In November, Musharraf again sacked Chaudhry and other judges under emergency rule, fearing they might disqualify him for contesting presidential elections while being army chief and president at same time.
Chaudhry and his family have been living under house arrest at the official residence of the supreme court chief judge in a heavily guarded government residential area of Islamabad since November.
Pakistan's incoming government coalition partners said on Sunday that the new parliament would reinstate the sacked judges.
Aitzaz Ahsan, a senior lawyer for Chaudhry, welcomed the announcement.
"Pervez Musharraf has made the children of the chief judge hostages for the last four months to pressure him to resign," said Ahsan, who is president of the Supreme Court Bar Association.
"This is criminal conduct. Keeping someone in illegal confinement to force him to sign documents is an offence," Ahsan told a lawyers' convention in the eastern city of Lahore.
Meanwhile, 4 000 people and lawyers had a peaceful rally in support of Chaudhry in the port city of Karachi, said witnesses.
- SAPA
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