Pakistani police baton charge mixed marathon runners

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

ISLAMABAD, May 14 (Reuters) - Pakistani police baton charged men and women at the start of a mini-marathon in the eastern city of Lahore on Saturday, after they defied a ban on the two sexes running together.

A Reuters photographer said police also beat and arrested protesters from Islamist parties who had planned to attack participants in the race.

"When people started running the police baton charged them, beat them and arrested them, pulling people by the hair, pulling women by the hair," Ali Dayan-Hasan, a Pakistani researcher for Human Rights Watch, told Reuters from a police cell where he was being held with more than 20 others.

Dayan-Hasan, who was observing the race, said up to 50 people, mostly women, had gone just a few metres before the police charged. He presumed the others detained were taken to another police station.

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http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/SP145246.htm

[Gold Metal Flake]

1. Freedom on the march.

Such fine friends we have in the world.

[damntexdem]

2. How surprising:

the police were in good enough shape to catch marathon runners?