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Pakistani police fired tear gas and beat protesters with steel-tipped sticks during a demonstration Sunday against Afghanistan's hardline Taliban rulers and their policies on women.
Hundreds of supporters of the Revolutionary Afghan Women's Association staged a rally on the outskirts of Islamabad to protest human rights abuses and discrimination against women by the Taliban.
Some of the protesters -- many of them women -- threw stones at a Pakistani religious group when they started shouting slogans in favor of the Taliban, witnesses said.
The religious group was collecting money for Islamic militants in the disputed Kashmir region of India, where Muslims are fighting to become part of Islamic Pakistan.
"Afghans destroyed our stall and threw away the religious books," said Mohammed Mustafa, a supporter of the militant Jaish-e-Mohammed group.
Stone-throwing clashes broke out between supporters of the Afghan women and several people in the neighborhood. Several of the women were arrested.
Shopkeepers shuttered their businesses and ran for cover. Black smoke from burning tires and eye-burning tear gas polluted the air.
More than two million Afghan refugees live in Pakistan, mostly in Pakistan's Northwestern Frontier and southwestern Baluchistan provinces, on the Afghanistan border.
But a large number, mainly from Afghanistan's urban areas, live in Islamabad. Traditionally urban Afghans have led the fight against the Taliban's harsh version of Islam.
The Taliban rule more than 95 percent of Afghanistan, including the capital, Kabul.
According to Taliban's interpretation of Islam, women are segregated from men and denied free access to work and education. They must wear the all-encompassing burqa and are not allowed to travel without a male member of their family.
The Taliban also force men to wear beards and have outlawed most entertainment, including television and music.
The Taliban are mostly Sunni Muslims and Pashtun, Afghanistan's majority ethnic group. They are fighting their northern-based opposition on several fronts in the north in an attempt to extend their rule over the entire country.
The opposition is made up of mostly ethnic and religious minorities. Some within the alliance share the Taliban's harsh brand of Islam.
The Revolutionary Afghan
Women's Association also protests the opposition, which they say has been
party to the destruction of their homeland and the oppression of women.
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