ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Police using tear gas and water cannons clashed today with hundreds of lawyers to block them from reaching the barricaded house of Pakistan's deposed chief justice.
About 1,500 black-suited lawyers marched on the residence of Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, the detained top judge of the Supreme Court, who was fired by President Pervez Musharraf three months ago.
After the lawyers tried to breach the barbed-wire barricade, hundreds of police drove them back by firing tear gas and shooting water cannons from a fire truck.
Some of the lawyers threw stones at police.
There were no immediate reports of serious injuries in the clash in the capital, Islamabad.
Earlier Saturday, Pakistan's Bar Council announced a nationwide lawyers' boycott of courts until Feb. 18 elections - part of a campaign to pressure the government to restore deposed top judges.
Athar Minallah, a prominent Supreme Court lawyer, said the decision was made at a council convention in Islamabad before they marched on Chaudhry's house.
Musharraf axed the chief justice and 60 other top judges after Musharraf declared emergency rule on Nov. 3, before the Supreme Court had been set to rule on the legality of the U.S.-backed leader's re-election as president.
Although Musharraf lifted the emergency in mid-December, Chaudhry, his wife and children have remained under house detention, and authorities have blocked repeated efforts by sympathetic lawyers and opposition activists to visit him.
Source: Canadian Press
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Witness account by Ahsan Mansoor:
PTI Punjab president Ahsan Rasheed came to Islamabad with lawyers rally and joined the protest in Islamabad. Many members of Tehreek-e-Insaf Islamabad chapter including Islamabad women wing president Mrs. Saleem Nawaz also joined the protest. Senior PTI leader Sadaqat Abbasi has been arrested by police.
When the rally reached judges colony, police used fire trucks to throw cold water on the protesters. But the protesters started making a human wall in front of them. Police then started firing tear gas shells. The tear gas was extremely concentrated. Protesters in reaction then started throwing stones at the police, with police reacting in the same manner by throwing stones at the protesters.
The dictatorial regime has totally exposed itself. The police can only beat peaceful protesters while criminals are roaming around freely, blowing up ordinary civilians (25 killed in ANP jalsa today) and looting the nation with both hands and then flying away. What the current does not know is that not a single dictator could rule the people of Pakistan through the use of force and arms. The days of Musharraf are numbered, and he will be leaving soon, one way or the other.