Activist urges UN to take action against crimes on Baloch people by Pakistan govt

Baloch activist Mazdak Dilshad Baloch has urged the United Nations to take urgent action against the crimes inflicted on the Baloch people by the Pakistan Government.

Speaking at the at a side event on the occasion of the 45th UN Human Rights Council Session, Baloch said that Balochistan has been "bleeding" since March 1947.

"Balochistan has been bleeding since March 27, 1947, with the military occupation of Pakistan giving licence to torture, rape, kill, disappearances, burning of homes, orchards-- finishing all forms of life and selling our gold mines and seaports to China, said the Baloch activist at a side event on the occasion of the 45th UN Human Rights Council Session.

He added, "Rashid Hussain was on a work visa in the United Arab Emirates in 2018 and was illegally extradited to Pakistan in June 2018--his life is already threatened and his brother and uncle have been killed. This abduction was assisted by a Pakistan army retired officer."

He further said that if a mission from the United Nations Human Rights Commission were to visit Balochistan, they would find targeted killings of men, women and journalists taking place.

"We appeal to the UNHRC to kindly take urgent action to save lives. If he has done a crime, it should be decided by the court. If the United Nations Human Rights Commission sends a mission to Balochistan right now, they would see hundreds of Baloch women in an army camp without food, water and washrooms. They would see the targeted killing of men, women and journalists."

He also added that the mission would see about 47,000 men dead or alive in Pakistan's secret concentration camps further saying, "They would see kids and mothers crying in protests crying in protest camps with pictures of their loved ones. They would see the Pakistan army attacking villages and abducting and killing civilians."

The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) had hit out at Pakistan's Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances (COIED), saying it has failed to hold perpetrators responsible for the crime in the last several years.

In 2011, the COIED was formed to trace the whereabouts of missing persons and fix the responsibility of individuals or orgsations responsible for the enforced disappearances.

According to a briefing paper titled 'Entrenching Impunity, Denying Redress: The Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances in Pakistan', the ICJ noted that although the COIED had traced the whereabouts of the missing persons in a number of cases, there was no effort to fix the responsibility for the crime.

( With inputs from ANI )