Mush in Saudi as over 3,400 activists freed

ISLAMABAD: Embattled Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf showed signs of reversing course with the government releasing 3,416 people jailed during the Emergency rule, even as the schedule for January 8 general elections was announced on Tuesday. The release of the detainees including lawyers and political activists came as Musharraf flew to Saudi Arabia on Tuesday for talks with the rulers there on possible reconciliation with former premier Nawaz Sharif, who was deported to the Kingdom in September.

Interior ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema while announcing the release at a news conference said another 2,000 prisoners will be freed soon. The cases of some facing criminal charges could take longer, he said. The government also said that former Supreme Court judges sacked by Musharraf and held under house arrest during emergency rule were ‘free to move.’

Media reports suggested that the Saudi government is trying to facilitate a reconciliation between General Musharraf and Mr Sharif. Sources said no direct meeting is planned between the two leaders but indirect contacts could not be ruled out. Mr Sharif has however ruled out any possibility of meeting Musharraf and said talks between him and the military ruler would be possible only “if one of them changed his political position”.

Meanwhile, cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan will continue his hunger strike in jail till Pakistan judges deposed under the emergency are reinstated, his Tehreek-e-Insaf party said on Tuesday. Khan is currently being held in the Dera Ghazi Khan Jail in Punjab province, where he was taken shortly after he was arrested in Lahore last week.

The release of the detainees came hours after Musharraf’s hand-picked Supreme Court cleared all the major legal challenges to Musharaff’s re-election as President but as a civilian and amid mounting US pressure for restoration of civil liberties. Responding to a question about deposed judges of the Supreme Court, he said they are “free to go to their homes if they so desire”. He said they were living in their official residences here at “their own choice”.

But the families of sacked judges, including former chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, claimed that police outside their houses were barring them from going out. Pakistan’s election commission announced the poll schedule but opposition parties said they were mulling a boycott as polls held in a state of emergency would not be free and fair.

Meanwhile in Karachi, police detained about 150 journalists on Tuesday after clashing with them during a protest against Emergency rule. A few reporters were reportedly injured. Police also detained 23 journalists after they tried to hold rally in the southern city of Hyderabad to protest press restrictions.