Pakistan Says 3,400 Political Detainees Are Freed

Pakistan's military ruler President Pervez Musharraf slightly eased his opposition crackdown yesterday as he flew to Saudi Arabia for a short state visit.

The interior ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema said 3,400 political detainees were being released while another 2,000 would remain behind bars or under house arrest.

But the opposition poured scorn on the figures and state repression continued. In Karachi police arrested about 150 protesting journalists, while in nearby Hyderabad another 23 were jailed.

Farhatullah Babar, of Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP), said that claims of mass releases were an "absolute lie". "We know of only about 40 supporters who were freed in Karachi," he said.

Police officials in Baluchistan and Sindh said that several hundred people, mostly lawyers, were being freed. "They came to my door with a release order at 3pm," said lawyer Noor Naz Agha in Karachi, where she was under house arrest.

But in other provinces, political activists remained in detention. "I'm still under arrest," said Iqbal Zafar Jhagra, of Nawaz Sharif's PML-N party, in Peshawar.

Musharraf flew to Saudi Arabia to meet King Abdullah and perform a short religious pilgrimage. He will resign as chief of army staff by the end of the week if a court decision goes his way tomorrow.

Speculation was rife that Musharraf would try to meet rival Nazwar Sharif, whom he deposed as prime minister in a 1999 coup and who lives in Saudi Arabia. But in a phone interview from Jeddah, Sharif denounced Musharraf as a "traitor" and said they had no ground for talks.

The election commission confirmed that a general election is to be held on January 8. Opposition parties are considering a boycott. The jailed opposition politician Imran Khan remained on hunger strike.