Pakistani lawyers call strike against emergency

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistani lawyers called for a countrywide strike on Monday against the imposition of emergency rule by President Pervez Musharraf, a leading lawyer said.

"We are launching our struggle from tomorrow. Lawyers will be observing a strike tomorrow. We will be holding protests and boycotting courts," Hamid Ali Khan, former president of the Supreme Court Bar Association, told Reuters on Sunday.

A lawyers movement emerged as the vanguard of an anti-Musharraf campaign after the army chief suspended the country's top judge in March, in a move seen as an attack on the independence of the judiciary.