Pakistan tightens security for lawyers' rally

ISLAMABAD, June 11 (Reuters) - Authorities stepped up security in the Pakistani capital on Wednesday as lawyers opposed to President Pervez Musharraf prepared to begin a cross-country rally to press for the restoration of judges he fired. Lawyers have been at the forefront of a campaign against staunch U.S. ally Musharraf since he tried to dismiss the chief justice of the Supreme Court, Iftikhar Chaudhry, last year. Chaudhry and dozens of other judges were purged after Musharraf declared emergency rule in November. The rally, dubbed a "long march" even though the lawyers will travel in a motor convoy, will set off from the southeastern city of Multan on Wednesday and is due to reach Islamabad on Friday. The protest will ramp up pressure on Musharraf to step down. He has been isolated since his allies were trounced in a February election and opponents are demanding he quit and face trial. It is also a challenge to the two-month-old coalition government led by the party of slain former prime minister Benazir Bhutto and a threat to the coalition's tenuous unity. The second biggest party in the coalition, led by another former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, say Bhutto's party has been dragging its feet on the restoration of the sacked judges and it is supporting the lawyers' protest. Sharif flew back from a visit to London on Wednesday to take part in the protest. "This is a national cause and we are fully participating in this cause. The future of Pakistan depends on the restoration of the judiciary," Sharif told reporters at Islamabad airport. Chaudhry, who spent nearly four months under house arrest after he was purged, is due to address the rally in Multan. Both sides have vowed to keep the peace, with the government saying the lawyers have the right to protest. But in a nuclear-armed country plagued by militant bombings and other violence, trouble can not be ruled out. Sixteen people were killed in a bomb attack on a lawyers' protest rally in Islamabad in July last year. Pakistani stocks, rattled by political worries recently, were higher ahead of a budget announcement later in the day. "PARLIAMENT IS THE HURDLE" Authorities in the capital have placed shipping containers across a main road leading to parliament and blocked other roads with barbed wire barricades. More shipping containers are at the ready on side roads. Paramilitary troops have been deployed at government buildings near parliament, where lawyers plan to stage a sit-in. Aitzaz Ahsan, president of the Supreme Court Bar Association and leader of the lawyers' movement, said their aim was to put pressure on parliament to restore the judges without delay. "Pervez Musharraf is no longer a problem ... Our demand is with parliament. Parliament is now the hurdle in restoring the judges," Ahsan told reporters late on Tuesday. Bhutto's widower, Asif Ali Zardari, who has led her party since her assassination in December, says he wants the judges restored through constitutional changes, but these might take months to introduce. Sharif and the lawyers' movement want the judges restored immediately through a parliamentary resolution. Analysts say, if reinstated, Chaudhry could take up legal challenges to Musharraf's presidency that could lead to his ouster. He might also review an amnesty that wiped out corruption cases against Zardari and other Bhutto party politicians. That, critics say, explains Zardari's foot-dragging. The coalition partners are also divided on how to handle Musharraf. Zardari says he does not recognise Musharraf as a constitutional president and would reduce him to a figurehead under the proposed constitutional changes. Sharif, who then army chief Musharraf ousted in 1999, wants Musharraf impeached and tried for treason. (Writing by Zeeshan Haider; Editing by Robert Birsel and David Fogarty)