Musharaff castigates Talibanisation bid

"Pakistan is earning a bad name abroad due to hardliners and orthodoxy in religion," General Musharraf told a gathering of lawyers Sunday, according to the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan (APP).

"The nation will have to decide whether they want "Taliban" Islam or Islam in the real sense (as) preached by the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him)."

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It was the pro-US president's strongest attack ever on radical religious parties and the fundamentalist laws they have imposed in North West Frontier Province (NWFP).

Musharraf, a key US ally in its war on terrorism, has been trying to stamp out Islamic extremism for more than 18 months, banning militant groups, arresting their followers, and attempting to modernise Koranic schools known as madrassah.

He said it was imperative for Pakistan, an Islamic republic established 56 years ago for South Asia's Muslims, to cultivate a more "enlightened and progressive" image.

"It is the demand of the hour to present Pakistan as an enlightened and progressive nation because we are being branded as 'fundamentalists', terrorists and an intolerant society, a stigma which we should prove wrong through our character and deed," he said.

The Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) alliance of far right religious parties in NWFP have banned men from training or watching female athletes, banned male doctors from treating female patients, and launched an anti-obscenity drive to eliminate music, dance, singing and pornography.

Mobs taking the anti-obscenity drive into their own hands have vandalised billboards depicting women and Western products, trashed shops selling music and video CDs, and torn cassette players out of public buses.

Last week the MMA-ruled provincial parliament voted unanimously to make Sharia the supreme law in NWFP's provincial courts and set up three committees to recommend ways to Islamise the education system, economy and judiciary.

The MMA government has also made it compulsory for all civil servants to pray five times a day, and wants to set up a Taliban-style department to enforce virtue and eliminate vice.

The legislature is also considering a proposed law to make it compulsory for all women to be covered from head to toe in public.

Musharraf said there should be no laws on how people dress

"Everyone is free to wear whatsoever he likes, there is no restriction on anybody's dress," he said.