Dear comrades!
Farooq Tariq, General Secretary Labor Party Pakistan, along with 10 party members, was arrested once again on Thursday (27th Sept 07), from outside Lahore High Court, third time in last three months. He was under ground for the last three days as police was looking for him to arrest him.

On Thursday he surfaced for a while to participate in lawyers protest rally against General Mushrraf. Labor Party fully participated in the rally to mark protest against the filing of nomination papers by General Mushrraf for the second presidential term. The moment Farooq tried to board his car after the termination of rally at about 12 noon, a contingent of Punjab police encircled him and arrested him without showing any arrest warrants.  Police also arrested 10 other party members, most of them brick kiln workers, who were peacefully dispersing after the rally. Police drove them all to Old Anarkali Police Station and detained there.

When party comrades, friends and journalists reached the police station to meet detained comrades they were refused to see them. Police also refused to reveal details of the arrests. After four hour police allowed to see the arrested comrades, and by then they registered a case against them under Terrorist Act and 16 MPO.

Meanwhile in the afternoon, members of  Labor party Pakistan held a protest demo in front of Lahore Press Club to condemn the arrests and demanded immediate release of the arrested comrades and all political prisoners. According to police the arrested comrades will be produced before the anti terrorist court on Friday. Human Rights activist Asma Jehangir, Rabeya Bajwa advocate and Abid Saqi advocate will defend Farooq Tariq and 10 other arrested party comrades.

Following are the names of the comrades arrested by police:
Farooq Tariq
Javed Masih
Sabir Hussain
Waris Masih
Mohammad Munir
Mohammad Sadiq
Mohammad Iqbal
Allah Ditta Masih
Mohammad Hassan
Allah Ditta
Qasim Ali

Khaliq Shah on behalf of Labor Party Pakistan