MORE CRUSHING OF DISSENT:

Police in northern Pakistan say unidentified attackers have shot dead a writer whose work was viewed as critical of fundamentalist Islam.

The 40-year-old writer, Fazal Wahab, was shot at a local shop.

Fatwas, or religious edicts, declaring his work un-Islamic had been issued by senior clerical figures after the publication of two books challenging the role of mullahs.

Perhaps Harold Pinter will be moved to write a poem.