PESHAWAR, June 2: The Federation of All Pakistan Universities Academic Staff Association (FAPUASA) has called upon its members to join the lawyers and civil society in their just struggle for the reinstatement of judges and ensure their maximum participation in the long march on June 10.

In a statement issued here on Monday, FAPUASA general secretary Mohammad Zubair Khan said that the body’s executive committee has reiterated its solidarity with the lawyers’ movement and the civil society for the restoration of the 1973 Constitution as it stood on November 2, 2007; impeachment of the president for abrogation of the constitution; restoration of all judges of the superior judiciary, who refused to take oath under the Provisional Constitution Order; removal of all the judges who took oath under the PCO; strengthening of the parliament and the prime minister.

Mr Zubair Khan said that their association had always been appreciative of the long drawn struggle of the civil society and that of the lawyers’ movement for restoration of democracy, constitution, rule of law and independence of judiciary and was hopeful that the people of Pakistan would soon reap the benefits of their struggle.

He said that the FAPUASA also hoped that the verdict of the people of Pakistan, expressed through the results of the general elections, would be respected by the winning political parties by acting to achieve the said objectives as top priority and that Mr Musharraf would step down from the presidency. “Mr Musharraf is still a source of instability and the Presidency has become the hub of all conspiracies against the establishment of democracy, restoration of constitution and the rule of law”, Mr Khan added.

The executive committee, Mr Khan said, is of the view that time had come for the faculty members of the public sector universities to come out on the roads for saving the country and achieving the (above) mentioned ideals in order to make Pakistan a free democratic and welfare state.