- guardian.co.uk, Wednesday January 31 2001 02.58 GMT
Hundreds of protesters from a rightwing Islamic party set fire to the printing presses of the Frontier Post in Peshawar yesterday and ransacked the newspaper's offices.
Monday's edition of the paper carried a letter which accused the prophet Mohammed of anti-semitism, "total dishonesty" and "unabashed male chauvinism".
"His hatred for Jews was caused by their refusal to accept him as a prophet because of his low moral character and his lack of knowledge of the scripture and his murderous ways," the letter said.
The writer said Mohammed made revelations from God "in order to satisfy his political or personal agenda or his libido". The letter, sent by email, was signed only "BenDZac".
Police raided the building late on Monday, arrested five staff and issued warrants for two senior editors. The staff are being held under Pakistan's blasphemy law, which carries a death penalty for those who insult Mohammed.
Peshawar magistrates said the newspaper's offices would be sealed indefinitely. "The contents of the letter were highly sacrilegious," the court said in a statement.
General Pervez Musharraf, who seized power in late 1999, said his government would not allow the publication of "such objectionable material".
The Frontier Post, which was not printed yesterday, published a large apology in rival newspapers. It said that it was the victim of a conspiracy and that it had given a list of suspects' names to police.
"We bluntly claim that the conspiracy sought to close down The Frontier Post, rendering the employees jobless, and to destabilise Pakistan," it said. "The persons apparently involved have been suspended pending inquiry."
The Post has had a troubled history. There were riots outside its offices in 1988 over a supposedly blasphemous article. In 1999 its owner, Rehmat Shah Afridi, whose papers had been critical of the then government of Nawaz Sharif, was arrested for drug trafficking.
Mr Afridi has been in jail ever since as his case drags through the legal system. His son, Mahmood Afridi, who now runs the paper, is one of the editors wanted by police.
