Defying a security crackdown, more than 3,000 lawyers and opposition activists torched an effigy of President Pervez Musharraf in protests yesterday against his removal of Pakistan's top judge. Flag-waving demonstrators massed outside the Supreme Court in Islamabad, where Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry attended a fourth hearing into misconduct charges lodged by the president. Military ruler Musharraf sacked the independent-minded Chaudhry on March 9, sparking nationwide demonstrations and a tense political crisis now spilling into its second month. "Go Musharraf, go" the protesters chanted, and "Musharraf is America's pet dog," as hundreds of paramilitary troops and baton-wielding riot police kept them away from the imposing court building. Some opposition party demonstrators set fire to a dummy and a poster of the president and beat them frantically with their shoes in a sign of disrespect, an AFP photographer said. Others torched piles of old tyres. "Our message for Musharraf is that people want real democracy and not the mock arrangement that we have now," cricket hero-turned-politician Imran Khan told AFP at the rally.
Lawyers wearing smart black suits and crisp white shirts held black flags and mobbed Chaudhry's car as he arrived at court and again as he left. A couple of lawyers climbed on top of the vehicle. The suspended chief justice has denied charges laid by Musharraf including that he abused his position to get his son a senior police job and to amass a fleet of cars.
Islamic fundamentalist party workers and supporters of the former premiers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif held separate but simultaneous protests under the blazing sun. The hearing was later adjourned until April 18 after lawyers for Chaudhry raised concerns about members of the panel dealing with the case, known as the Supreme Judicial Council. A uniformed effigy of Musharraf was torched in the eastern city of Lahore, where another 4,000 lawyers and opposition supporters rallied in front of the provincial assembly building, an AFP reporter said.
