Hundreds of people have been arrested as the government has started a countrywide crackdown on political activists and lawyers in order to keep them from joining the long march announced by the opposition leader Mr. Nawaz Sharif of the Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz Group (PML-N) in collaboration with politically active lawyers. The said march is meant to pressure the government into giving up its rule while the government is declaring this move from the opposition as sedition.

According to newspapers, dozens of people were dragged and thrashed by the police in front of their relatives when they resisted the arrests made by the police in the federal capital Islamabad and provincial capital Lahore (Punjab). Arrests of PML-N workers were also made in Multan, Faisalabad, Sialkot, Dera Ghazi Khan, and Rawalpindi. In Sahiwal and Gujranwala, the District Administrator (Nazim) and the SSP, respectively, refused to follow the orders of arresting political activists. More than 500 people have been detained while others are being hunted for arrest.

The long march is expected to arrive at the Constitution Avenue (Islamabad) on Monday, March 16 2009, where the protesters will stage a sit-in until their demands are met. The lawyers are demanding the restoration of the deposed judges while the protesters from the PML-N, led by their chief Nawaz Sharif, are asking for repealing the court orders of the disqualification of Sharif brothers and also putting an end to Governor’s rule in the Punjab province. The government has banned protests in Punjab and Sindh provinces and the crackdown on political opponents is still in progress in an effort to suppress the large-scale protest that is thwarting its rule.