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ISLAMABAD: Thousands of Pakistani lawyers boycotted courts on Monday amid a judicial crisis sparked by President Pervez Musharraf's sacking of the country's top judge.
Security was tight in Islamabad where advocates did not attend the Supreme Court over the suspension of Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry on alleged charges of misconduct and abuse of his authority on Friday.
In Karachi, Pakistan's biggest city, lawyers wearing black armbands staged a sit-in outside the main court complex and chanted slogans against Musharraf, lawyers said.
Lawyers also boycotted courts in the eastern city of Lahore and other towns in central Punjab province.
"It's a complete boycott of the superior and lower courts by all lawyers," Supreme Court Bar Association president Munir Malik told AFP.
Rights groups, opposition parties and lawyers have condemned the move by military ruler Musharraf – who took power in a bloodless coup in 1999 – as an assault on the independence of the judiciary.
Musharraf says Chaudhry was abusing his position and has referred the case to the Supreme Judicial Council, Pakistan's top judicial accountability body. It will take up the case on Tuesday.
Chaudhry has since been confined to his official residence in Islamabad and journalists are barred from meeting him, although the government denies reports that he is under house arrest.
Veteran politician Asghar Khan, who met him briefly late Sunday, quoted Chaudhry as saying that his telephone had been cut off and that he cannot watch television or receive newspapers.
Chaudhry has demanded his "open trial so that facts are known to the people," Khan told reporters.
Chaudhry had been at loggerheads with the government since the Supreme Court overturned a government deal to sell the country's state-run steel mills to a mostly-foreign consortium in June 2006.
Analysts say he also had a reputation for taking a firm stance on rights abuses and cases of missing people allegedly in government custody.
- AFP/so
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