RAWALPINDI, Feb 8: Lawyers of Rawalpindi Bar Association (RBA) at their general body meeting on Friday condemned registration of sedition case against the Peshawar lawyers and sealing of Peshawar High Court bar by police on the orders of the court registrar.

The lawyers in their speeches expressed solidarity with the NWFP lawyers and said they were ready to proceed to Peshawar to join their colleagues there in the hour of need.

The speakers maintained that it was ridiculous that peaceful lawyers were booked under sedition charges while those who had broken the constitution went Scott free. It was unfortunate that the registrar of Peshawar High Court ordered the locking of the high court bar rooms.

According to reports Peshawar cantonment police registered a case against 15 lawyers including two female advocates under the charges of waging war against Pakistan, conspiracy to wage war against state, rioting and police encounter on Thursday when they tried to stop some lawyers from appearing before the judges who has taken oath under November 3 provisional constitutional order (PCO).

The lawyers in their speeches said no official coercion could deter them from raising voice for rule of law and against the unconstitutional steps.

They also lamented registration of a criminal case against Qazi Hussain Ahmed chief of Jamaat-i-Islami and his supporters who were barred from marching towards the official residence of deposed and detained chief justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry.

They resolved to make the National Lawyers Convention a success on Saturday at Islamabad Bar Association and said they would march towards the residences of the detained CJ and that of their leader and Supreme Court Bar Association President Aitzaz Ahsan.