Karachi  - Thousands of lawyers backed by political and rights activists Monday kicked off a countrywide protest campaign for the reinstatement of more than 60 senior judges sacked by Pakistan's embattled President Pervez Musharraf last year.

Some 8,000 protesters, who gathered at the mausoleum of Pakistan's founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah in the southern city of Karachi, began their touring rally that is scheduled to reach Musharraf's residence in the garrison town of Rawalpindi before the weekend.

Musharraf removed the independent-minded judiciary, including the chief justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, on November 3 by declaring emergency rule in anticipation of a possible Supreme Court verdict against his controversial re-election a month earlier.

The move triggered renewed protests by lawyers and anti-Musharraf political parties against the military president, who also made an abortive attempt to sack Chaudhry in March 2007.

The Karachi assembly was part of scores of small and big rallies from southern provinces of Sindh and Balochistan that would converge on the town of Sukkur, from where they would proceed for the central city of Multan to be joined by the deposed top judge.

Hundreds of vehicles and motorbikes carrying the demonstrators, travelled through Karachi's congested roads amid charged sloganeering in support of judiciary's restoration.

"Our long march will continue till the reinstatement of all the judges deposed by dictator Pervez Musharraf," former judge and Sindh High Court Bar Association president Rashid Ali Rizvi told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Delivering fiery speeches at Sohrab Goth area that marked the end of Karachi district limits, lawyers' leaders asked the ruling coalition, which formed the government after routing Musharraf's political allies in February elections, to honour their commitment to reinstate the deposed judges.

According to organizers, Chaudhry will lead the nationwide rally coined as 'long march' as it will move from Multan to Lahore en route to Rawalpindi.

"Our plan is to stage a sit-in outside Musharraf's residence for three days from June 13 (Thursday)," said Naeem Qureshi, secretary-general of the Karachi Bar Association.

Analysts believe the "long march" would increase difficulties for unpopular military dictator-turned-civilian president, who has been under intense public pressure to resign since February 18 elections that saw his political backers badly defeated.

But the embattled president last week defied calls to step down and vowed to resist any effort by the coalition government, which is lead by the late Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP), to curtail his authority.

The PPP said Sunday in a press statement that it would go ahead with the proposed constitutional reforms to curb presidential powers.

"The parliament, as representing the will of the people, is sovereign and can make or amend laws and the constitution regardless of whether Musharraf likes or not." (dpa)