Deposed Pakistan Judge Urges Protests

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By ROBIN McDOWELL

Pakistan's deposed chief justice called on lawyers nationwide Tuesday to defy baton-wielding police and protest President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's imposition of emergency rule.

``Go to every corner of Pakistan and give the message that this is the time to sacrifice,'' Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, who is under virtual house arrest in Islamabad, told lawyers by mobile phone. ``Don't be afraid. God will help us and the day will come when you'll see the constitution supreme and no dictatorship for a long time.''

Later, in the central city of Multan, hundreds of police blocked about 1,000 attorneys from leaving a district court complex to stage a street rally in defiance of a ban. Both sides pelted each other with stones and officers swung batons to disperse the crowd.

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The authoritarian measures have drawn widespread international criticism, although so far only the Netherlands has punished Pakistan, freezing most of its development aid.

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