Islamabad, Dec 1 (ANI): Lawyers of Pakistan believe that despite the presence of foreign election observers, the January 8 general polls will be rigged.

“No matter how many observers you send, the elections will still be rigged and we will have what Pakistan has been going through for the past 55 years,” said a 71-year-old corporate lawyer, Munawar Akhtar.

Akhtar and several other lawyers marched towards ousted Chief Justice Ifthikar Muhammad Chaudhry house to express their solidarity with those lawyers who were held in solitary confinement for three weeks.

Akhtar said that the act of solidarity was necessary, because the promise of President Pervez Musharraf to lift emergency rule in two weeks was deceptive.

Munir Malik, 57, a former head of the Supreme Court Bar Association was held in a remote jail in solitary confinement in a cell so tiny that he could not stretch his legs, said his nephew, Jahmasp R. Razvi.

Malik was hospitalized in Islamabad last weekend with severe kidney problems. He remains in a hospital, but has been formally released from detention, the New York Times reported.

Three other leading lawyers remain under house arrest, including Aitzaz Ahsan, the president of the Supreme Court Bar Association.

According to some observers, Musharraf is relaxing strictures after being sworn in as a civilian president on, but the lawyers says that he is not really doing so.

Some lawyers said they were disappointed that Western diplomats who had met with leaders of the opposition had not shown the same interest in meeting them.

Tariq Mehmood, 57, a retired judge, spent three weeks on the floor of a cell, with no heating or bedding, said his wife, Sohaila Tariq, who is also a lawyer. (ANI)