JURIST - Paper Chase: Lawyers in Pakistan's largest city strike to protest emergency rule

[JURIST] Lawyers in Karachi, Pakistan's largest city, went on strike Saturday in protest at President Pervez Musharraf's emergency rule. Members of the Karachi Bar Association and other local bar associations followed an earlier strike call from the Pakistan Bar Council [official website] (PBC) and the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA). Over 350 prisoners from all around the city could not have their cases heard due to the absence of lawyers. Pakistan's News daily has local coverage.

Pakistani lawyers kept up intermittent protests and strike action this week after the PBC urged them to return to the lower courts while maintaining their boycott [JURIST reports] of superior courts staffed by judges appointed under Musharraf's Provisional Constitution Order [text]. Hundreds of lawyers - including many bar association leaders [Daily Times report] - have been been detained by the authorities [JURIST report] and jailed in Karachi [HRCP list] and elsewhere for protesting the emergency, the suspension of the Pakistan's constitution, and the effective removal of the country's Supreme Court justices.

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