LAHORE, Nov 4: Justice Khwaja Mohammad Sharif, a deposed judge of the Lahore High Court, is set to address the members of Lahore High Court Bar Association (LHCBA) here on Wednesday to condemn police action against lawyers on Nov 5, 2007.

Lawyers were badly beaten up, dragged and bundled into police vans and later locked up in different jails of Punjab in an attempt to restrain them from protesting against the then chief of army staff, President General Pervez Musharraf, for imposing emergency and removing superior courts judges.

The crackdown against lawyers was not only confined to Lahore as hundreds of lawyers were beaten black and blue and detained throughout the country.Majority of around 700 lawyers arrested from Lahore alone remained behind bars for weeks and shuffled between different jails before they were released. Where the then government kept a mum over the detentions, the Human Rights Watch declared the action as one of the most repressive state action.

“The government wanted to browbeat the lawyers community to pre-empt another waive of protest against General Musharraf,” said LHCBA secretary Rana Asadullah. He said when General Musharraf sent a reference against Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, the lawyers took to the street and built bases for the return of the top judge. — Syed Faisal Shakeel