About 1,000 Pakistani lawyers and political activists are undertaking a cross-country rally to demand the restoration of judges sacked by Pervez Musharraf, the president.The protest, due to end in Islamabad, the capital, on the weekend, aims to increase pressure on Musharraf to step down.
Iftikar Muhammad Chaudhry, Pakistan's deposed chief justice, has set off from his home in Islamabad on Tuesday to join the lawyers and activists.
He is flying down to Lahore to meet the protesters.
Lawyers have spearheaded opposition to Musharraf since the former army chief tried to dismiss Chaudhry last year.
Chaudhry and dozens of other judges were dismissed after Musharraf declared emergency rule in November.
Tough test
"We are out to save the judiciary. We are out to save the country," Mehmood-ul-Hassan, president of the Karachi Bar Association, told the rally as lawyers chanted "Go Musharraf" in a street in the centre of Karachi.
Kamal Hyder, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Islamabad, said: "It is going to be a real test for the government and the judiciary.
"Because this is a make-it or break-it' for the judiciary.
"This is a very big march they have organised and they have had to organise it because ... there are serious divisions within the ruling coalition as to the fate of the president at the moment."
Dubbed a "long march" even though the lawyers will travel in a motor convoy from Karachi to Multan, where the march to Islamabad will officially begin, it is the first major protest the new government will have to contend with.
Both sides have vowed to keep the peace, with the Pakistan government saying that the lawyers have the right to protest.
The protest could also trigger even deeper splits in the coalition led by the party of Benazir Bhutto, the assassinated former prime minister, which is seen as dragging its feet on the restoration of Chaudhry and other sacked judges.
