Pakistan expels three UK reporters

Pakistan has ordered the expulsion of three reporters of the Daily Telegraph for using "foul and abusive" language about the president.

The three _ Isambard Wilkinson, Collin Freeman and Daniel Macelroy_ have been ordered on Saturday to leave Pakistan in the next 72 hours due to an opinion piece in which President Pervez Musharraf is referred to by what Pakistani officials called "foul and "abusive language."

The editorial piece, which was published Friday without a byline and titled "Bankrupt Relationship," further described Musharraf's rule as a "combination of incompetence and brutality."

"This was very, very unfair," Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammed Sadiq said. "You can't go to a country and call the head of state names like that," he added, saying that while he had read the editorial, he could not confirm the expulsions reportedly ordered by the Information Ministry.

This was the first direct measure taken against staff of foreign media in the country since the imposition last Saturday of emergency rule by Musharraf, an army general who seized power in a 1999 coup.

President Musharraf has also threatened journalists who criticize his government or the army with up to three years in jail.