Pakistan Frees 3,000 Prisoners

Pakistani police have released over 3,000 opposition activists—including lawyers and members of the political opposition—arrested since the suspension of the constitution on Nov. 3, Pakistan's interior ministry said today. Under pressure from Washington, President Pervez Musharraf, whose hand-picked court validated his reelection, is withdrawing some of the harshest measures of emergency rule.

Lawyers freed today insisted that they would continue their battle for the reinstatement of the country's suspended judges and return to civilian rule. Even as they were releasing detainees, police arrested about 150 journalists who tried to hold a rally protesting the muzzling of the press. Some 2,000 activists remain imprisoned, including the cricketer-turned-MP Imran Khan. (More Pervez Musharraf stories.)