Pakistan arrests 200 Sunni activists

Police in Pakistan have arrested more than two-hundred activists of a militant Sunni Islamist group.

A spokesman for Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan said those detained include the organisation's leader, Maulana Azam Tariq, who's a member of the suspended Punjab Assembly.

He's been imprisoned under a three-month detention order.

The arrests come ahead of the hanging, next Wednesday, of a member of the group, Haq Nawaz, who was sentenced to death by an anti-terrorism court for murdering an Iranian diplomat ten years ago. The sentence was upheld by the Supreme Court and a final mercy petition rejected by President Rafiq Tarar.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service