PAKISTAN:Pakistan's military ruler, Pervez Musharraf, slightly eased his crackdown on the opposition 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 23 were jailed.
Farhatullah Babar, of Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party, said 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 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.
President Musharraf flew to Saudi Arabia to meet King Abdullah and perform a short religious pilgrimage.
He will resign as chief of the army staff by the end of the week if a court decision goes his way tomorrow.
Speculation was rife that Gen Musharraf would try to meet Mr Sharif, whom he deposed as prime minister in a 1999 coup and who lives in Saudi Arabia. But in a phone interview from Jeddah, Mr Sharif denounced him 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 8th. Opposition parties are considering a boycott. The jailed opposition politician Imran Khan remained on hunger strike.
Ms Bhutto met party colleagues in Karachi yesterday and said the party would announce its decision in a day or two. She also said her party would welcome any talks between Gen Musharraf and Mr Sharif.
Najam Sethi, editor of the Daily Times, believed Gen Musharraf had gone to Riyadh to ask the Saudi authorities to ensure that Mr Sharif remained in exile until at least after the election.
"The last thing he wants is Nawaz Sharif coming back in this highly charged environment," said Mr Sethi, adding that the president's best bet for support still lay with Ms Bhutto.
One of Mr Sharif's main demands is restoration of the judiciary, as Gen Musharraf has used the emergency to purge the supreme court of judges who might have annulled his re-election.
On Monday the court, now packed with judges friendly to the president, struck down five challenges to his re-election.
The last one will be heard on Thursday.