Bhutto house arrest ends
Benazir Bhutto released from house arrest in Islamabad, Pakistan
Friday, 09, Nov 2007 06:25
Former Pakistan prime minister Benazir Bhutto has been told she is no longer under house arrest.
The opposition leader had spent Friday struggling to leave her home in Islamabad after it was surrounded with troops and barbed wire.
Authorities in Pakistan said Ms Bhutto had been detained to protect her from an unspecified terror threat.
But it appears more likely that she was prevented from attending a planned rally in Rawalpindi in protest at president General Pervez Musharraf's declaration of emergency rule.
When Ms Bhutto attempted to leave her home, rings of armed police prevented her from doing so.
"Get out of the way," she said through a loudspeaker. "We are your sisters. My father laid down his life for you and this nation," Ms Bhutto continued in a reference to former president Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.
She had earlier called on supporters to take to the streets of Rawalpindi, the country's largest garrison town, almost a week after emergency rule was imposed.
But the rally was hamstrung by claims from her party that more than 5,000 of her supporters had been detained to prevent them from marching.
Yesterday Gen Musharraf pledged to hold parliamentary elections scheduled for January in mid-February and step down as head of the country's army.
"We are looking at a date where we can dissolve all the assemblies simultaneously and hold the election simultaneously for the national assembly and four provincial assemblies," he said on state television.
"Having calculated all this, we must hold elections before 15th of February 2008.
"I have been saying for the last few months that elections will be held on schedule. There is no doubt in my mind that elections should be held on time as soon as possible.
"It was my commitment and I am fulfilling it."
But Ms Bhutto condemned the president's commitment as vague in an overnight interview with the BBC.