Pakistani police raided offices and homes of dozens of radical Islamic leaders, putting several under house arrest and detaining hundreds of their associates in a bid to foil a rally planned to take place yesterday in the capital to protest cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, officials said.
But Maulana Fazlur Rahman, a lawmaker and parliamentary opposition leader from the six-party religious coalition that is organizing the rally, vowed it would proceed despite a government ban and police barricades around the capital.
Qazi Hussain Ahmad, the chief of the six-party coalition, was placed under house arrest in the eastern city of Lahore, while other senior leaders in Islamabad were either arrested or asked not to leave their homes.
PHOTO: AP
Mian Maqsood, a spokesman for the coalition, said "hundreds" of Islamic leaders had been arrested, although Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao said only about two dozen had been detained to stop the latest protest against the publication of Prophet Mohammed cartoons in Europe and elsewhere.
150 arrested
Chaudhry Shafqaat Ahmed, chief investigator of Lahore police, said about 150 supporters of the coalition and several other religious groups were arrested on Saturday night and another 150 were listed to be arrested.
"These people could create problems of law and order in the city or in Islamabad," Ahmed said.
The arrests came hours after the government warned radical Islamic groups against holding the rally, fearing it would spark more violence after at least five people died in riots across the country over the past week.
Police had set up road blocks into Islamabad yesterday and cars and other vehicles were being checked for supporters of the religious alliance.
Paramilitary troops patrolled the streets in pickup trucks with mounted machine guns, while soldiers barricaded themselves behind sand bags near key government buildings and at an enclave housing foreign embassies, witnesses said.
Rahman, who had not been arrested, described the ban as unconstitutional.
"We do not accept these orders," Rahman said. "I want to make it clear that the protest will be held. The government should take back the ban."
But a government official reiterated yesterday that the rally will not be allowed.
"If five or more than five people gather, they will be arrested," said Mohammed Ali, a senior government administrator in Islamabad.
Militants
Pakistani intelligence officials have said militants from outlawed extremist groups have been stirring up the visolence. Authorities have also banned demonstrations in several cities in the country's east, where riots turned deadly last week.
The cartoons offend Muslims because Islamic tradition bars drawings of Mohammed, favorable or otherwise, in a policy to discourage idolatry.
The drawings were first published in the Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, and reprinted by European media outlets that insist they're exercising their right to free speech.
DOUBLE-MURDER CASE: The officer told the dispatcher he would check the locations of the callers, but instead headed to a pizzeria, remaining there for about an hour A New Jersey officer has been charged with misconduct after prosecutors said he did not quickly respond to and properly investigate reports of a shooting that turned out to be a double murder, instead allegedly stopping at an ATM and pizzeria. Franklin Township Police Sergeant Kevin Bollaro was the on-duty officer on the evening of Aug. 1, when police received 911 calls reporting gunshots and screaming in Pittstown, about 96km from Manhattan in central New Jersey, Hunterdon County Prosecutor Renee Robeson’s office said. However, rather than responding immediately, prosecutors said GPS data and surveillance video showed Bollaro drove about 3km
‘MOTHER’ OF THAILAND: In her glamorous heyday in the 1960s, former Thai queen Sirikit mingled with US presidents and superstars such as Elvis Presley The year-long funeral ceremony of former Thai queen Sirikit started yesterday, with grieving royalists set to salute the procession bringing her body to lie in state at Bangkok’s Grand Palace. Members of the royal family are venerated in Thailand, treated by many as semi-divine figures, and lavished with glowing media coverage and gold-adorned portraits hanging in public spaces and private homes nationwide. Sirikit, the mother of Thai King Vajiralongkorn and widow of the nation’s longest-reigning monarch, died late on Friday at the age of 93. Black-and-white tributes to the royal matriarch are being beamed onto towering digital advertizing billboards, on
Tens of thousands of people on Saturday took to the streets of Spain’s eastern city of Valencia to mark the first anniversary of floods that killed 229 people and to denounce the handling of the disaster. Demonstrators, many carrying photos of the victims, called on regional government head Carlos Mazon to resign over what they said was the slow response to one of Europe’s deadliest natural disasters in decades. “People are still really angry,” said Rosa Cerros, a 42-year-old government worker who took part with her husband and two young daughters. “Why weren’t people evacuated? Its incomprehensible,” she said. Mazon’s
POWER ABUSE WORRY: Some people warned that the broad language of the treaty could lead to overreach by authorities and enable the repression of government critics Countries signed their first UN treaty targeting cybercrime in Hanoi yesterday, despite opposition from an unlikely band of tech companies and rights groups warning of expanded state surveillance. The new global legal framework aims to bolster international cooperation to fight digital crimes, from child pornography to transnational cyberscams and money laundering. More than 60 countries signed the declaration, which means it would go into force once ratified by those states. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the signing as an “important milestone,” and that it was “only the beginning.” “Every day, sophisticated scams destroy families, steal migrants and drain billions of dollars from our economy...
RSS