ISLAMABAD, 20 March 2007 — Six judges, including Lahore High Court Justice Jawad Khawaja, resigned yesterday over government moves to sack the country’s chief judge. The five other judges who resigned were from the Sindh province.

The suspension of Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry on March 9 and his subsequent treatment has outraged lawyers, the opposition and many ordinary Pakistanis, and presented President Pervez Musharraf with his biggest political crisis as elections loom.

The move against Chaudhry has fueled suspicion Musharraf feared the independent-minded judge would block any move by the president to retain the role of army chief. Elections are due later this year.

Protesting lawyers and opposition activists clashed with police in the capital Islamabad and in Lahore last week. There were no demonstrations in those cities yesterday but lawyers across the country stopped work for an hour in a token protest and several hundred lawyers marched in Karachi.

President of the Lahore High Court Bar Association Ahsan Bhoon told Arab News by telephone that Justice Khawaja handed over his official car to the court authorities before handing in his resignation. He left the court premises in his private car and took his personal files home.

President of the Karachi High Court Bar Association Javed Qazi said the judges who resigned in Sindh were Allah Bachao Gabol, Ashraf Yar Khan, Mustafa Safwi, Asad Shah Rashdi and Malik Ehsan. The leader of the opposition Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) alliance called for a protest outside the Supreme Court in Islamabad tomorrow when Chaudhary is due to appear before a panel of judges hearing accusations against him.

“It’s a political issue, a political fight... we have to intensify street protests,” Qazi Hussain Ahmed, president of the six-party MMA alliance, told reporters.

“This struggle can take us to our destination,” he said, apparently referring to the end of Musharraf’s rule.

Extra police were on duty outside the Supreme Court in Islamabad where a hearing began into media reports that police had manhandled Chaudhry last Tuesday after he refused to get into an official car to be taken to the Supreme Court for a hearing into the accusations that led to his suspension.

Judge Javed Iqbal, who was made acting chief justice after Chaudhry was suspended, told the Supreme Court the hearing into the police action was being held to safeguard the “prestige, honor and dignity” of the office of chief justice.

Pakistan yesterday told the international community not to interfere in the controversy. The United States called Friday on Pakistani authorities and their opponents to show the “utmost” restraint after street protests turned violent and police ransacked a television station.

“As far as the judicial reference is concerned, it is sub judice. We do not expect comments from the international community about that,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam told a weekly briefing. “There have been comments by media of course and also by some human rights organizations and bodies. What I would say is that this is a matter which is sub judice,” Aslam said.

— Additional input from agencies