Pakistan releases opposition supporters

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ISLAMABAD, Nov 20 (AP): More than 3,000 people jailed under emergency rule have been released, the Interior Ministry said Tuesday, the latest sign that President Pervez Musharraf was rolling back some of the harsher measures taken against his opponents.
Interior Ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema put the exact figure of those freed in recent days at 3,416 - including lawyers and political activists - and said more than 2,000 people remained jailed.
"The process has started. More are being released today," Cheema said, adding that those still in detention "would be freed soon" though he said the cases of some facing criminal charges could take longer.
Musharraf, who left for a visit to Saudi Arabia Tuesday, has been under immense pressure from Washington to free opposition leaders, end media restrictions and step down as head of the armed forces.
The releases came hours after judges hand-picked by Musharraf quashed legal challenges to his disputed re-election as president. Still, 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.
And while some people were being showed out of detention facilities, others were being led in.
Police detained 23 journalists after they tried to hold a rally in the southern city of Hyderabad to protest press restrictions, said Ali Hassan, a local journalist who was present at the rally.
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. Bhutto herself was released from a second stint under house arrest late last week, as was a prominent human rights activist, Asma Jehangir.
"All the political workers and lawyers who were detained ... are being released," a senior provincial official, Ghulam Mohammed Mohtarem, said of the Sindh releases. "We had instructions from the chief minister to release these people."
He added that others - he wouldn't say how many - remain in jail in the province, including 11 people charged with sedition since emergency rule was imposed on November 3.
Musharraf headed to Saudi Arabia on Tuesday for talks with King Abdullah about the political crisis, said the president's spokesman, Rashid Qureshi. Musharraf frequently visits Saudi Arabia, a close ally that is also home to one of his staunchest opponents - former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, 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 Tuesday.
The Bush administration has put intense pressure on Musharraf to lift emergency rule as swiftly as possible, saying that the elections cannot be fair unless Musharraf frees opponents, lifts media curbs and lets candidates campaign freely.
It also has urged opposition parties to restart a dialogue of reconciliation with the government that last month yielded an amnesty for Bhutto from corruption charges, allowing her to return from exile.
AFP adds: Exiled former premier Nawaz Sharif urged fellow opposition leader Benazir Bhutto to join him in boycotting Pakistan's upcoming elections, as he said he had spurned a meeting with President Pervez Musharraf.
The former premier's comments in a telephone interview with the news agency came amid fevered political manoeuvring in nuclear- armed Pakistan, as Musharraf jousts with his foes over his imposition of a state of emergency.