WBWF demands release of all Baloch women, children from 'Pakistan's torture cells'

Vancouver [Canada], December 8 (ANI): The World Baloch Women Forum (WBWF) has condemned the abduction of Baloch leader Allah Nazar's sister Noor Khatoon and demanded immediate release of all Baloch women and children from Pakistan's torture cells.

"We have learnt that Baloch leader Dr Allah Nazar's sister Noor Khatoon was arrested and taken away by Pakistani security forces, whereas his cousin Sahib Dad was killed and dumped. Dr Nazar's wife and children were also arrested by Pakistani forces last month. They were later released with much fanfare after mounting pressure from Baloch groups. This is not the story of Nazar's family alone. It has been the story of every Baloch family since 1948," said Prof Naela Quadri Baloch, head of WBWF, in a statement.

She added that systematic discrimination, dehumanisation, persecution, demographic marginalisation and neglect of basic development needs is all that the people of resource rich occupied Balochistan has seen in Pakistan since 1948.

Naela noted that the lives of the common Baloch people are being made worse by routine abductions and targeted killings.

"The plight of the Baloch people has worsened ever since the launch of the China-sponsored China Punjab Economic Corridor (CPEC) as Pakistan assured of Chinese support and stocked with Chinese arms now believes that it has a licence to kill," she said.

"Earlier, the American patronage and weapons were used by Pakistan to kill and dump the Baloch," she further said.

Asserting that indigenous Baloch people had already suffered growing marginalisation due to the influx of Afghans and Punjabis, Prof Naela said now due to the growing Chinese interest, the problem has assumed much larger proportions around the 'Corridor of Misery' that the CPEC is, land is being occupied and people are being displaced at a faster rate than ever before in Balochistan.

She said that Baloch people are left with no other option than to resist Pakistan's vicious state policy with all available means and resources.

Prof Naela added that the Baloch people will continue their peaceful and principled resistance and struggle for self-determination despite Pakistan's attempts to destroy the middle ground for the civil society through curbs on peaceful assembly, clampdowns on NGOs, curbs on independent media, attacks on Human Rights defenders, state censorship, draconian anti-terror laws, state-sponsored vilification, surveillance, arbitrary detention, torture and enforced disappearances.

"We no longer want to remain within Pakistan controlled by its mercenary and genocidal army. Pakistan, which is in every way an artificial geographical construct as was Yugoslavia, is using draconian measures to control three of its four provinces that want to leave. The world has to decide on which side it is," she said.

She called on global community to be on the side of unjust as Pakistan is an oppressive state which also happens to be one of the epicentres of global terrorism and narcotics trade.

"The world has to act before it is too late. To begin with, the UN can send a fact finding mission to Balochistan to hear from the people on the ground. That is the least we expect from the world," she said.

For decades in Balochistan, economic exploitation through the plundering of natural resources, and the systematic economic, social and political exclusion of indigenous Baloch people, has become a norm.

In addition to this, enforced disappearances, extra-judicial killings and an escalating crackdown on freedom of expression are used as covert tools to brutally repress the peaceful struggle for justice, rights and equality of the Baloch.

Reports say at least 8,000 Baloch are still victims of enforced disappearances in Balochistan, while 1,500 such victims were killed and dumped, according to human rights organisations. (ANI)