(Xinhua)
Updated: 2007-11-23 14:51

ISLAMABAD/KARACHI - Protests by the judiciary community and journalists against emergency in Pakistan gradually wore off Thursday as more opposition party leaders were released.

About a dozen journalists gathered at the local press club of southern city Karachi, looking more relaxed.

Journalists numbered in hundreds clashed with the police at the press club Tuesday when they protested against a media ban imposed under the state of emergency, leading to the brief arrest of more than a hundred.

A crowd of 300 gathered there on Wednesday, delivering speech and chanting "free media", and in the end offered the police roses labeled with notes reading "peaceful defiance."

Some of the policemen, charged with maintaining the state of emergency, smiled in front of media cameras, with roses in hands.

"It was a posture from the journalists to show that they want to make peace with the police," a reporter working with a local newspaper said.

Separately, staff members of Geo, one of Pakistan's most watched private TV channels banned under the state of emergency, staged a concert in the evening in protest against government ban.

The Karachi Bar Association has been holding indoor protests daily at its premises near the city court, which a senior member of the organization said was something of a routine recently.

The protest, however, was largely confined to the press and the judiciary community. "There was no protest by the general public in Karachi, not a single one," a senior local journalist told Xinhua.

Protests were wearing off as the government relaxed the emergency, imposed on November 3 when pressures of political turmoil, especially from the judiciary pillar, piled upon President Pervez Musharraf.

Life of the general public was mostly not affected as many continued playing cricket just steps away from patrolling police and security forces in Islamabad.

The election commission has announced an official agenda for elections of federal and provincial assemblies to be held on January 8. The election processes were proceeding, with nomination papers issued for dozens of candidates by Thursday.

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