Pakistan Police Clash With Lawyers

Police officers stand guard as lawyers protest in Multan, Pakistan on Monday, Nov. 5, 2007. Baton-wielding police fired tear gas and clashed with thousands of lawyers protesting President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's decision to impose emergency rule, as Western allies in the war on terror threatened to review aid to the troubled Muslim nation. (AP Photo/Khalid Tanveer) (AP)

The opposition has been demanding Musharraf relinquish his post as army chief and says he should be disqualified because he contested the presidential vote as army chief.

Musharraf has also moved quickly to control the media, which he said was partly to blame for the current crisis. Authorities have blacked out TV networks and threatened broadcasters with jail time, but so far have spared the Internet and most newspapers. Most people in Pakistan, where illiteracy is rife, get their news from TV or radio.

Police raided and briefly sealed a printing press belonging to Pakistan's largest media group on Monday. They also tried to storm a press club in Karachi. Broadcasts by independent news networks remained blocked, and domestic transmissions of BBC and CNN went off the air.

Lawyers _ who were the driving force behind protests earlier this year when Musharraf tried unsuccessfully to fire independent-minded chief justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry _ attempted to stage rallies in major cities on Monday. But the protests were quickly stamped out.

In Lahore, about 2,000 lawyers congregated at the High Court. As lawyers tried to exit onto a main road, hundreds of police stormed inside, swinging batons and firing tear gas. Lawyers, shouting "Go Musharraf Go!" responded by throwing stones and beating police with tree branches.

An Associated Press reporter saw police bundle about 250 lawyers into waiting vans. About 20 were injured, at least two bleeding from the head and were treated in a waiting ambulance before being spirited away.

In the capital, Islamabad, hundreds of police and paramilitary troops lined roads and rolled out barbed-wire barricades on Monday to seal off the Supreme Court.

Rana Bhagwandas, a Supreme Court judge who refused to take oath under Musharraf's proclamation of emergency orders, said he has been locked inside his official residence in Islamabad and that other judges were being pressured to support the government.

"They are still working on some judges, they are under pressure," Bhagwandas told Geo TV in a phone interview.

Chief justice Chaudhry was removed from his post on Saturday, just as the Supreme Court was preparing to rule on the validity of Musharraf's Oct. 6 re-election.

"I am virtually arrested," Chaudhry said in a written statement, describing the emergency declaration as a "naked attack" on the rule of law. "The main gate of my residence has been locked."

Even lawyers who were not involved in protests appeared to be targeted.