Pakistan: 'A war for power and rule'

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, March 12 (UPI) -- Pakistani lawyers joined in protests Thursday against the government of President Asif Ali Zardari.

Rehman Malik, head of the Interior Ministry, told the National Assembly that a "long march" would be allowed to proceed, Dawn reported. Marchers planned to start in Quetta near the Afghan border and Karachi, Pakistan's major port and biggest city, meeting in Islamabad.

"We'll not stop them but if someone tries to take the law in his hand I must say in the house that he won't be allowed," Malik said in the National Assembly. "This is a war for power and rule and unless we get out of this sphere, such things will keep on happening."

Arrests were reported in Karachi by The New York Times and clashes between demonstrators and police in Lahore by The Times of London.

In 2007, lawyers demanding an independent judiciary took to the streets to protest President Pervez Musharraf's policies. This week, they were again on the streets protesting because the judges ousted by Musharraf haven't been restored to their positions.

These images have raised the passions of everyone who wants an independent judiciary," Aitzaz Ahsan, a lawyers' leader, told The Times of London.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband and U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke phoned Zardari, while Anne Patterson, the U.S. ambassador, met with Nawaz Sharif, leader of the opposition, and then joined Holbrooke in speaking to Zardari.

A Sharif spokesman told The Times that she was "trying to get things resolved between Mr. Sharif and the government."