Pakistan
3,000 Pakistan activists released from jail
More than 3,000 people jailed in Pakistan under emergency rule have been released, the Interior Ministry said today, in the latest sign that President Pervez Musharraf is rolling back some of the harsher measures he has taken against his opponents.
The Interior Ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema would not say how many opposition members were still behind bars, though the number was still believed to be in the hundreds or thousands.
The releases came hours after judges hand-picked by the President, General Pervez Musharraf quashed legal challenges to his re-election as president. The decision enraged his most bitter opponents, but others said it could lead to an easing of restrictions and make it easier for politicians to campaign for parliamentary elections.
In addition, a firm date was set this morning for general elections. Elections to both the national and provincial assemblies will go ahead on January, 8 2008, the country's Chief Election Commissioner, Qazi Muhammad Farooq, has said on state TV.
Most of the people set free overnight were lawyers and ordinary opposition supporters. Many high-ranking party activists and leaders, such as the former cricketer Imran Khan, remained in prison. Khan began a hunger strike yesterday to protest against emergency rule.
General Musharraf headed to Saudi Arabia today for talks with King Abdullah about the political crisis, said the president’s spokesman, Rashid Qureshi.
General Musharraf frequently visits Saudi Arabia, a close ally that is also home to one of his staunchest opponents, Nawaz Sharif, a former prime minister who the general toppled in a bloodless 1999 coup. The two have no plans to meet, Sharif was quoted as saying by Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper today.
(Published by The New York Times, November 20, 2007)
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