Rights Victory As Pakistani Women Join Race

The race was unlikely to make sporting history. The athletes wore heels and baggy shalwar kameez; the stewards were black-clad police commandos; and the action, such as it was, lasted barely 15 minutes.

As the panting, middle-aged runners crossed the finishing line, nobody even bothered to declare a winner. But it did not matter. The hundreds of Pakistani activists who reached Lahore's cricket stadium on Saturday had scored a small but highly symbolic victory - for the right of men and women to run together.

"An atmosphere of terror is being created in the name of religion," said the organiser, Asma Jahangir, as ecstatic supporters hoisted her on to the bonnet of a police vehicle. "But we will not be cowed by the mullahs."

Sport is the new battleground between liberals and conservatives in Pakistan, where clashes over mixed-sex marathons have become a test of President Pervez Musharraf's much-touted tolerance.

Conservative mullahs have denounced female participation in previously male-only events as a slur on Islam, an attitude that until this weekend was shared by the security forces.

A week ago Lahore police sparked uproar when they broke up a road race, with female officers grabbing racers by the hair and shoving them into arrest wagons.

News footage showed Ms Jahangir, the UN special rapporteur on freedom of religion and belief, and a veteran human rights activist, receiving particularly rough treatment.

This week the city's mayor, Mian Amir, tried to ban a repeat race, using Section 144, a draconian public order law introduced by British colonists and still used by the Pakistani government to quell dissent. But at the last minute he backed down.

The 1,000 metres race, from Liberty roundabout to the Gadafy stadium, was more micro- than mini-marathon, but few of the 300 participants cared. "We won because we were right," said Talaat Yaqub, a former court judge. "It shows that women can walk or run on this road like any Pakistani."

The controversy started last month after a mob of stick-wielding conservatives attacked Punjab's first mixed-sex race in Gujranwala. Instead of punishing the aggressors, the provincial authorities banned female participation in the races.

Repeated pandering to religious extremists was "destabilising the Pakistani state and undermining regional and international security," said the International Crisis Group, an independent organisation working to prevent conflict. But this weekend President Musharraf rediscovered his will to face down the bullies.

More than 100 Islamist protesters were forced to watch the men and women racers from behind a police cordon. It was a disgrace, they said.

"In our Islamic culture no parent would like to see their daughters running with boys," said Hafiz Hussain Ahmed, deputy leader of the conservative MMA alliance.

The real test of Mr Musharraf's reformist impulse will come later this year over the proposed repeal of the Hudood law, which outlaws extra-marital sex and requires a rape victim to provide four witnesses to prove her case.

"This is a small advance but I cannot call it a victory," said Ms Jahangir afterwards. "That will come with freedom and democracy. And there is a long way to go."