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Pakistan Leader Releases 3,000 More Opponents

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By SADAQAT JAN, The Associated Press

Published: November 21, 2007

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - More than 3,000 people jailed under emergency rule have been released, the Interior Ministry said Tuesday, the latest sign that President Gen. Pervez Musharraf was rolling back some of the harsher measures taken against his opponents.

Musharraf, who left for a visit to Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, has been under immense pressure from Washington to free opposition leaders, end media restrictions and step down as head of the armed forces.

Interior Ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema put the exact figure of those freed in recent days at 3,416, including lawyers and political activists, and said more than 2,000 people remained jailed.

"The process has started. More are being released today," Cheema said, adding that those still in detention "would be freed soon" though he said the cases of some facing criminal charges could take longer.

Officials in the Saudi kingdom said authorities were also trying to arrange a visit between Musharraf and Nawaz Sharif, the prime minister whom Musharraf toppled in 1999. Sharif was sent back to Saudi Arabia last month when he tried to return home from exile.The releases came hours after judges hand-picked by Musharraf quashed legal challenges to his disputed re-election as president. Still, many high-ranking party activists and leaders, such as former cricket star Imran Khan, remained in prison. Khan began a hunger strike Monday to protest the emergency rule.

Although some people were being let out of detention facilities, others were being led in.

In the southern city of Karachi, police detained about 150 journalists Tuesday after clashing with them during a protest against Pakistan's state of emergency, witnesses said. Police used batons against the protesters, and witnesses said they saw two reporters bleeding from head injuries.

Police also detained 23 journalists after they tried to hold a rally in the southern city of Hyderabad to protest media restrictions, said Ali Hassan, a local journalist who was present at the rally.

In the southern province of Sindh, authorities released 300 people, including lawyers, human rights activists and supporters of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, one of Musharraf's chief rivals. Bhutto was released from a second stint under house arrest late last week, as was a prominent human rights activist, Asma Jehangir.

"All the political workers and lawyers who were detained ... are being released," a senior provincial official said of the Sindh releases. "We had instructions from the chief minister to release these people."

Bhutto said Monday she had no plans to revive power-sharing negotiations.

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