Pakistani lawyers and opposition workers chanting slogans against President Pervez Musharraf rallied in Islamabad yesterday as the country's suspended chief justice appeared before a judicial council.
Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, charged with misconduct and abuse of authority by the president on March 9, made his seventh appearance at the Supreme Court in the capital, his lawyers said.
The rally came despite a heavy crackdown overnight by police who detained hundreds of activists from opposition parties to prevent them from reaching the top court, police and opposition sources said.
Scores of protesters stood under scorching sun shouting "Go Musharraf go," "Musharraf is US stooge" and "We want independent judiciary," witnesses said.
The turnout was much lower than previous protests since the start of the judicial crisis, during which rallies of thousands were held outside the court for each hearing of Chaudhry's case, which is being heard by a panel of judges called the Supreme Judicial Council.
Islamabad police chief Zafar Iqbal said more than 100 people from different opposition parties were detained in raids overnight in the capital to prevent "potential trouble-makers from agitating outside the court."
Police sources said another 200 opposition activists were arrested in different cities of the main Punjab province.
Lawyers boycotted courts across the country and staged rallies in support of the embattled judge who has denied charges that he abused his position to get a police job for his son and to amass a fleet of cars.
Opponents accuse Musharraf of dismissing Chaudhry illegally in an attempt to weaken the judiciary and make it easier for him to stay on as army chief past 2007, when the Constitution says he is meant to give up the position.
Musharraf also intends to seek re-election by the outgoing parliament for another five years ahead of national polls due late this year or early next -- a move that could spark other legal challenges.
Musharraf says the dismissal of Chaudhry was legal and intended to stem corruption.
DEATH CONSTANTLY LOOMING: Decades of detention took a major toll on Iwao Hakamada’s mental health, his lawyers describing him as ‘living in a world of fantasy’ A Japanese man wrongly convicted of murder who was the world’s longest-serving death row inmate has been awarded US$1.44 million in compensation, an official said yesterday. The payout represents ￥12,500 (US$83) for each day of the more than four decades that Iwao Hakamada spent in detention, most of it on death row when each day could have been his last. It is a record for compensation of this kind, Japanese media said. The former boxer, now 89, was exonerated last year of a 1966 quadruple murder after a tireless campaign by his sister and others. The case sparked scrutiny of the justice system in
The head of Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, was sacked yesterday, days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he no longer trusts him, and fallout from a report on the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack. “The Government unanimously approved Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposal to end ISA Director Ronen Bar’s term of office,” a statement said. He is to leave his post when his successor is appointed by April 10 at the latest, the statement said. Netanyahu on Sunday cited an “ongoing lack of trust” as the reason for moving to dismiss Bar, who joined the agency in 1993. Bar, meant to
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
‘HUMAN NEGLIGENCE’: The fire is believed to have been caused by someone who was visiting an ancestral grave and accidentally started the blaze, the acting president said Deadly wildfires in South Korea worsened overnight, officials said yesterday, as dry, windy weather hampered efforts to contain one of the nation’s worst-ever fire outbreaks. More than a dozen different blazes broke out over the weekend, with Acting South Korean Interior and Safety Minister Ko Ki-dong reporting thousands of hectares burned and four people killed. “The wildfires have so far affected about 14,694 hectares, with damage continuing to grow,” Ko said. The extent of damage would make the fires collectively the third-largest in South Korea’s history. The largest was an April 2000 blaze that scorched 23,913 hectares across the east coast. More than 3,000
RSS