Imran Khan is free!

Mr Khan's release may therefore be partly because his detention was making waves internationally and causing embarrassment for the government

from BBC (click on post title for link to URL)


GEO TV, a Pakistani channel reported

ISLAMABAD: Pakistani authorities have released more than 5,000 lawyers, political workers and rights activists who were arrested under emergency rule, an aide to the law minister said Wednesday.

A total of 5,757 people have been detained since President Pervez Musharraf declared a state of emergency on November 3, said Sarwar Hayat, an aide to caretaker law minister Afzal Haider.

"Some 5,134 people have been released up to 7:00 pm (1400 GMT) today," he said.

Of the remaining 623, he said 202 were lawyers while 421 were either students or political workers. "Their release is also under consideration and it is expected that they would be freed in a few days," he added.

Cricket legend Imran Khan was freed from jail earlier Wednesday.

and

Imran likely to go to PU again (Posted at 2150)
DERA GHAZI KHAN: Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) Chief Imran Khan condemned the emergency rule and demanded the release of all political detainees in the country.

Addressing a press conference soon after being freed from jail here, PTI Chief said he would go to Punjab University once again and address PU students.

On this occasion, he reiterated his demand that the sacked judges should be reinstated.

This piece in Dawn sums up Musharaf well:

“WHEN the nation is about to be declared a failed state,” asks embattled Pervez Musharraf, “tell me whether…so-called democracy is important or efforts to save the country?” After saving the country for the last eight years he obviously wants to do it all over again.

If memory serves, the primary excuse for his first coup in Oct 1999 was the same chestnut: that Pakistan was about to be declared a failed state. As self-indictments go this is quite a devastating one. But in his present saviour-mode Musharraf can’t be expected to have much time for such fine distinctions.

“Have you thought of (resigning)?” asks Sky News. The answer: “But should it be given up now and we will have better Pakistan, a stabler Pakistan and we could have very good elections, without me? Very good, maybe I take that decision, OK?” (No kidding, the very words.)

As the BBC Urdu Service’s Mohammad Hanif observes (in his hilarious “The case of Musharraf and the drunk uncle”), “Musharraf deserves our sympathy. Not because he has been forced to carry out a coup against his own regime, not because his troops are being kidnapped en masse by Pakistani Taliban and then awarded Rs500 for good behaviour, not because he himself has become a prisoner in his Army House and can’t even nip out for coffee and paan as he used to, but because he has utterly lost his grip over grammar.”

From Ayaz Amir's "Freedom Doesn't Come Easy" - full article can be found here: http://www.dawn.com/weekly/ayaz/ayaz.htm