Pakistan took further steps at the weekend to curb open and vociferous dissent by religious parties over its support for the US airstrikes on Afghanistan.
The authorities barred 27 Islamic activists from a border area where the religious groups are highly active and placed under house arrest a cleric who called for the president to be ousted.
Mr Qazi Hussain Ahmad, the leader of the Islamic movement Jamaat-e-Islami, was confined to his home after he told a rally last Friday that Pakistan's generals should force the president, Gen Pervez Musharraf, from power.
The leader of a branch of another Islamic movement, Jamiat Ulema Islam was also placed under house arrest last month. Neither group has had substantial electoral support, but they have been outspoken critics of the US attacks on Afghanistan, which they say are an unjustified onslaught against Islam.
Gen Musharraf's government is highly sensitive to criticism of its support for the US campaign and last week ordered a ban on the use of mosque loudspeakers for non-religious messages.
On Saturday, the government of the North West Frontier Province, a region with close links to Afghanistan, barred the 27 prominent Muslim activists, most of them clerics, from entering its territory for 30 days.
The move appeared aimed at curbing pro-Taliban unrest along the border among Pashtuns, the same ethnic group as most of the members of the ruling Taliban. Demonstrators in the province have blocked roads and some have crossed into Afghanistan to join forces with the Taliban.
The weekend moves followed the arrest last Thursday of Mr Mukhdoom Javed Hashmi, the acting president of a branch of the leading moderate political party, the Muslim League. Mr Hashmi was arrested shortly after his party announced it would join the minority Islamic movements in protesting against Gen Musharraf's support for the US attacks. He is still being held by the National Accountability Bureau which investigates corruption, although his party colleagues insist he was arrested because of the its stance.
The Muslim League was the country's leading party before Gen Musharraf took power in a military coup in 1999. The religious parties have organised daily street protests and a series of strikes leading to an all-out stoppage planned for November 9th. Mr Hashmi is a member of a branch of the Muslim League which remains loyal to its ousted leader, the former prime minister Mr Nawaz Sharif,
Mr Iqbal Zafar Jhagra, the league's secretary general for the North West Frontier Province said yesterday that Mr Hashmi's arrest had spurred party members to take part in further demonstrations.
"Eighty per cent of people are opposed to government policy on Afghanistan," he told The Irish Times in Peshawar. "The sympathies of the people are with the people of Afghanistan. On the day of the World Trade Centre attack the world's sympathies were with America, but as every day of the attacks on Afghanistan continue the US is losing the sympathies of people throughout the world."
Mr Jhagra urged Gen Musharraf to withdraw co-operation with the US in its attacks on Afghanistan which he said were irresponsible and could lead to the outbreak of a third world war. His party was not urging people to participate in a jihad, or holy war against America, but this option could not be ruled out if the attacks on innocent civilians continued, he said.