ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Thousands of lawyers boycotted courts across Pakistan on Thursday, hoisting black flags and staging rallies to demand an end to emergency rule, and police blocked former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif from marching to the heavily guarded home of the deposed Supreme Court chief justice.
Riot police turned out en masse and blocked the route to the official residence of If tikhar Mohammed Chaudhry with concrete and steel barriers and barbed wire. Sharif led his followers to the blockade and addressed them briefly before they dispersed peacefully, defusing a potential showdown.
Chaudhry has been under house arrest since Nov. 3, when President Pervez Musharraf declared a state of emergency and dismissed most of the Supreme Court justices just before they were to rule on the validity of his October re-election by a parliament controlled by his supporters.
Musharraf has since stacked the court with loyalists, who promptly dismissed all complaints against the former general’s election.
Representatives of his two biggest rivals — former prime ministers and longtime political foes Sharif and Benazir Bhutto — announced they had finished work on a list of 15 demands for the government to ensure their participation in Jan. 8 parliamentary elections.
