ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan's main Islamist alliance vowed on Monday to hold more protests against cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad as authorities freed its leader from a day in house arrest to prevent him leading a weekend rally.
The Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) alliance said most of the 3,463 opposition supporters it says were detained at the weekend were still being held, but its president, Qazi Hussain Ahmed, was allowed to leave the eastern city of Lahore on Monday morning.
Ahmed later arrived in Islamabad to chair a meeting of the six-party alliance, MMA spokesman Shahid Shamsi said. He said "some children" among the detained had been freed, but most, including some members of parliament, were still being held.
The government has said arrests were made but gave no figure.
Shamsi said the MMA planned a countrywide protest on Friday, another in Lahore on Sunday, and a nationwide general strike on March 3. Another protest would be held on March 5 in Karachi, the country's commercial capital, he said.
The planned protests could coincide with a visit to Pakistan by President George W. Bush, expected in early March, although no dates for this visit have yet been announced.
Cartoons first published in a Danish newspaper and reprinted in other European papers have sparked worldwide protests by Muslims who believe it is blasphemous to depict the Prophet.
Some have turned violent, raising fears of a clash of civilizations between the West and Islam.
MUSHARRAF TARGETED
The protests in Pakistan, in which five people died last week, have increasingly targeted President Pervez Musharraf's military-led government for its alliance with the West in the U.S.-led war on terrorism.
The secretary-general of Qazi Hussain Ahmed's Jamaat-i-Islami party, Syed Munawar Hussan, vowed on Sunday the protests would continue "until General Musharraf falls".
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