Pakistani police on December 25 freed 290 Baluch activists who were arrested when they attempted to hold a protest last week in the capital, Islamabad. Their release came days after protest organizers gave authorities a deadline to release all those detained. The activists had traveled 1,600 kilometers on December 21 from Turbat, a town in Balochistan Province, to protest forced disappearances and extrajudicial killings in the militancy-ravaged southwest. The protesters were mostly women and some had brought along their children, aged 7-12, when security forces used batons and water canons to disperse and arrest them.