LAHORE, Dec 1: Two members of an American human rights group, Global Exchange, has denied the government’s claims that lawyers arrested under the emergency laws have been released.

Medea Benjamin and Tighe Barry, who came to Pakistan to monitor the political situation since the imposition of emergency rule, said they had been denied a meeting with Mr Aitzaz Ahsan when they tried to meet him on Saturday.

“We discovered that his home is still a designated sub-jail and he remains under detention in his home, unable to go out or receive visitors.”

They told Dawn on Saturday that because of this reason, they had decided to keep a vigil outside his home from 12 noon on Sunday till 12 noon on Monday.

“President Pervez Musharraf is telling the world that he is committed to democracy. So it is outrageous that Mr Aitzaz, the head of the nation’s Supreme Court Bar Association, remains under house arrest,” said Barry. “We have come a long way to meet the lawyer who, we have heard, is one of the great heroes of the struggle for democracy in Pakistan,” said Benjamin.