Pakistan women's rights activist released from detention

One of Pakistan's leading women's rights activists has been released from police custody, she told AFP Thursday, after Amnesty International said she and others had been detained "arbitrarily".

Gulalai Ismail was arrested along with 17 other members of the Pashtun Protection Movement (PTM), a peaceful organisation defending the rights of ethnic Pashtuns, during a protest in Islamabad on Tuesday.

"It was very painful for my family, who tool 30 hours to know where I was," she told AFP, adding that she had been freed late Wednesday.

She was separated from the other activists, she said, and was not placed under official arrest.

"They didn't charge me with anything. They didn't let me contact my lawyer. They just kept moving me around," she said.

"You cannot arrest citizens and just disappear them."