Police block Pakistan justice protest

Police blocked a protest march by former Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and hundreds of supporters today.

The demonstrators were almost outnumbered as they tried to reach the heavily guarded home of Pakistan’s deposed chief justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry.

Mr Chaudhry has been under house arrest since November 3, when President Pervez Musharraf declared a state of emergency and sacked most of the Supreme Court justices, just before they were to rule on the validity of his re-election in October.

Mr Musharraf has since stacked the court with loyalists, who have promptly dismissed all complaints against the former general’s election.

Mr Sharif led the marchers – who included members of his party, lawyers in black suits and a number of women carrying flowers, chanting “Finish with your show; go, Mr Musharraf , go” – to the barricades. He then briefly addressed them before they dispersed peacefully, defusing a potential showdown with a government.

Mr Sharif vowed to continue pursuing the reinstatement of Mr Chaudhry and other judges, saying “God willing, we will be victorious.”

“I want to tell the nation that past dictators were also used to ousting prime ministers, arresting them from their houses and hanging even one of them,” he said. “Now a dictator has attacked the judiciary, and if the nation today ignores these actions of a dictator, history will not forgive it.”

Meanwhile, Mr Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-N and the Pakistan Peoples Party of another former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, were reported to be nearing agreement on a joint set of conditions for their participation in parliamentary elections scheduled for January 8.

Both claim the government plans to rig the vote, and have threatened a boycott unless their demands are met. They are expected to demand restoration of an independent judiciary and the constitution and creation of a neutral caretaker government and independent election commission, and will likely set a deadline for government compliance.

“We’re optimistic that we’ll reach agreement because everyone wants to pull the country out of this crisis and prevent Musharraf from rigging the elections,” said a spokesman for the Pakistan Muslim League-N. “Despite our differences in the past, we are legitimate democratic parties while Musharraf is an illegitimate military dictator.”

A boycott would undercut efforts that Mr Musharraf says he is making to engineer a transition to democracy for Pakistan after eight years of military rule.

Since returning from exile in Saudi Arabia 10 days ago, Mr Sharif – ousted by Mr Musharraf in a 1999 military coup – has become the president’s most vehement critic.

Meanwhile, in Lahore, Mr Sharif’s brother Shahbaz Sharif, leader of the Muslim League-N, made a surprise appearance in the local anti-terrorism court to seek clarification of charges that he was responsible for the killings of five alleged criminals in a clash with police in 1998 when he was chief minister of Punjab province.

The charges were used by the electoral committee in Lahore in rejecting Mr Shahbaz’s candidacy in the upcoming elections. His brother also has been excluded from taking part in elections on separate charges of terrorism stemming from the 1999 coup.