Sharif barred from meeting sacked Pak CJ

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ISLAMABAD, DEC 6 (AP): Police erected barricades to block former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and hundreds of supporters as they tried to march Thursday to the heavily guarded home of Pakistan's deposed chief justice.
The protesters were nearly outnumbered by riot police, who blocked the route to the official residence of Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry with concrete blocks, steel and barbed wire.
Chaudhry has been under house arrest since Nov. 3, when President Pervez Musharraf declared a state of emergency and sacked most of the Supreme Court justices, just before they were to rule on the validity of his re-election in October.
Musharraf has since stacked the court with loyalists, who have promptly dismissed all complaints against the former general's election.
Sharif led the marchers - who included members of his party, lawyers in black suits and a number of women carrying flowers, chanting "Finish with your show; go, Musharraf, go" - to the barricades. He then briefly addressed them before they dispersed peacefully, defusing a potential showdown with a government that has shown no tolerance for public dissent.
Meanwhile Reuters adds, Pakistani opposition parties haggled Thursday over whether to demand reinstatement of judges sacked by President Pervez Musharraf as a condition for their participation in January elections.
Two former prime ministers, Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, have said they would present Musharraf with a "charter of demands" to ensure a fair general election on January 8, failing which they would "move towards" a boycott.
A boycott by the two main opposition parties and smaller allies would rob the vote of credibility and prolong instability in a nuclear-armed country that is crucial to U.S. efforts to fight al Qaeda and bring peace to neighboring Afghanistan.