Lawyers protesting the imposition of emergency in Pakistan clashed with the police for the second successive day  on Tuesday, even as former prime minister Benazir Bhutto ruled out talks with President Pervez Musharraf as a way out of the impasse.

In other developments, US President George W Bush and other United States government officials talked tough but there were indications that American aid will continue to flow to Pakistan, which has received close to $10 billion in the last six years.

On its part, the Pakistani government roundly rejected the international community’s condemnation of the emergency, terming it an “internal affair”.

Also on Tuesday, the legal hurdle to the emergency declaration was removed with the reconstituted Supreme Court overturning an order of a previous bench headed by sacked chief justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, which termed the declaration as unconstitutional.

The lawyers stir on Tuesday spread to Multan in Punjab, where baton-wielding police prevented some 1,000 lawyers from leaving the court complex to stage a street rally.

Chaudhry speaks

In Islamabad, Chaudhry, who claims he is under house arrest at his official residence in the capital, addressed about two-dozen lawyers inside the Islamabad Bar Association headquarters via telephone.

“It’s time for sacrifice, and the day will come when the constitution will be restored. It will be restored as it should be. There will be no dictatorship,” Chaudhry said.

Mobile phone services in Islamabad were abruptly snapped even as he spoke, apparently to prevent him from continuing.

3,500 held

Some 3,500 people have been arrested since the emergency was declared on Saturday and fundamental rights were suspended. Most of the arrested are lawyers, though opposition leaders and rights activists have also been arrested.

In Karachi, Bhutto said she would not meet or negotiate with Musharraf, with whom she had been in talks for sharing power after the general elections that were originally scheduled for January.

“No (talks), and I don’t intend to meet Pervez Musharraf,” she told reporters at airport before boarding a flight to Islamabad, where she will be meeting opposition leaders and addressing a rally on November 9.