Pakistan releases 3,400 opposition activists

Authorities said yesterday they have begun releasing some of the thousands of opposition supporters detained since emergency rule was imposed earlier this month, while Pakistan's military leader departed for a visit to Saudi Arabia.
The releases came hours after judges hand-picked by President Gen. Pervez Musharraf quashed legal challenges to his disputed 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 Jan. 8 parliamentary elections.
Most of the few hundred people set free overnight were lawyers and ordinary opposition supporters. 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 emergency rule.
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.
"All the political workers and lawyers who were detained ... are being released," said a senior provincial official, Ghulam Mohammed Mohtarem. "We had instructions from the chief minister to release these people."
He added that others he wouldn't say how many remain in jail, including 11 people charged with sedition since emergency rule was imposed on November 3.
In neighbouring Baluchistan, 49 lawyers and six political activists were set free, said Rehmatullah Niazi, a senior police officer in Quetta, the provincial capital. Three other lawyers remain in custody.
Thousands of other people also remain imprisoned in Pakistan's other two provinces.
Musharraf says the emergency is needed to combat increasingly powerful Islamic militants. But his government has used emergency rule to jail his political opponents, purge Supreme Court judges and muffle independent TV stations.
Critics say he imposed the emergency solely to preserve his grip on power by preventing the then-Supreme Court from invalidating his recent re-election as president.