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Post by Shadow on Feb 20, 2006 14:28:03 GMT -5
Breitbart By SADAQAT JAN Associated Press Writer ISLAMABAD, Pakistan Radical Islamic leaders on Monday called for more rallies against the Prophet Muhammad cartoons in Pakistan as lawmakers disrupted a session of Parliament, protesting sweeping arrests before a banned demonstration over the weekend. The rowdy opposition legislators forced the lower house of parliament, or National Assembly, to adjourn indefinitely after they stood up and chanted anti-government slogans. They also demanded a debate about the roundup of hundreds of Islamic hard-liners before Sunday's protest in the capital, Islamabad. One of those detained was Qazi Hussain Ahmed, a leader of a six-party coalition of radical Islamic parties, called Mutahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), or United Action Forum. The MMA sympathizes with the former Taliban regime in Afghanistan and is fiercely anti-U.S. Authorities held Ahmed and others because they feared the coalition's rally would become violent like others have in the past week. Despite the leaders' detention, protesters clashed with police for about three hours on Sunday. After Ahmed was freed from house detention late Sunday he traveled to the capital Islamabad on Monday for a meeting with senior leaders in the alliance. Ahmed and Maulana Fazlur Rahman, a lawmaker from the coalition and opposition leader in the parliament, jointly announced that a series of new rallies against the cartoons and the government would be held.
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