Pakistan police separated supporters and opponents of President General Pervez Musharraf as the two sides held rival rallies in the capital yesterday during a hearing on a top judge's contentious suspension.
Lawyers and opposition activists have organized several protests since Musharraf removed Supreme Court chief justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry on March 9, triggering a political crisis that is testing the president's hold on power.
The government insists it suspended Chaudhry only after receiving credible complaints that he had abused his office -- for example, by using his position to seek a plum police job for his son.
However, critics accuse the government of trying to oust an independent-minded judge ahead of possible legal challenges to Musharraf's continued rule.
Chaudhry has denied the charges and vowed to fight for his job.
Hundreds of supporters of the ruling PML-Q party joined the fray for the first time yesterday, marching from their party headquarters toward a court in the center of the government district in the capital, Islamabad.
They halted at one end of a broad boulevard leading to parliament, where police had laid coils of barbed wire across the asphalt. About 1,000 opposition activists and lawyers massed near an identical barrier about 200m away.
Hundreds of riot police lined up to prevent anyone from climbing over the wire or sneaking around it.
Some of the government supporters carried pictures of the president in his military uniform. They chanted, "Musharraf we are with you," and "Wherever you go, we will follow."
Pakistan's Information Minister Mohammed Ali Durrani told the crowd, which included several other Cabinet members, that "If Musharraf gives the word, we can bring hundreds of thousands onto the streets."
"The opposition is politicizing a totally legal issue," he said, adding that the lawyers "should confine themselves to their profession."
Musharraf, who seized power in a 1999 coup, is expected to seek election to a new term as president from the current federal and provincial assemblies, which were elected in 2002. His supporters predict he will obtain a clear majority.
However, opposition parties say the 2002 polls were fixed and insist that only the lawmakers chosen in parliamentary elections due at the end of this year will have the legitimacy to endorse the next head of state.
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