Human Rights Advocacy and Media Watch
Balochistan’s leading Shia scholar Allama Maqsood Domki Baloch has condemned the ongoing genocide of the Balochs by Pakistan army and its various agencies. Expressing unity with the Baloch nation, Allama Domki said that Pakistani State cannot expect to have a meaningful dialogue with the Baloch while at the same time pursing Pakistan army’s kill and dump policy. Allama Domki declared Rehman Malik as a dubious
Editor’s note: Recently we came across a heated debate on Twitter between two regular columnists of Pakistan’s Daily Times, Dr. Mohammad Taqi and Yasser Latif Hamdani. Yasser also co-edits Pak Tea House blog along with Raza Rumi. In this post, we are cross-posting the two articles and also publishing some of the reactions on Twitter.
Through posting this debate and the heated exchange, we seek to have views of Pakistan’s oppressed minority groups, particularly the Balochs. What do our Baloch friends think about
Apparently after killing hundreds of Shias in last few months (Khanpur, Punjab, 15 January 2012, 34 killed; Parachinar, FATA, 17 Feb, 46 killed; 28 February, Kohistan, 20 killed), ISI-sponsored Jihadi-sectarian beasts (JuD-LeT and ASWJ-SSP) are directing their guns towards Baloch nationalists who are fighting for freedom from Punjabi-dominated Pakistan army and
Do not match Jondullah with Balochistan freedom movement – by Ahmar Mustikhan
It does not matter if one was Baloch and the other is an Arab. They both represent the violent face of wahabi sunni Islam. The Baloch must be extremely careful and do not look upon Jondullah as a lesser evil simply because it is comprised of Balochi-speaking sunni wahabis, warns intellectual and poet Dr. Malek Towghi of East Lansing, Michigan.
The Baloch cannot afford to see sunni wahabi’ism flourish, even if a foreign power might open bag loads of
The difference between the Adiala Seven and the hundreds of Sangats is that the former are Punjabis and Deobandis and the latter are Baloch and secular. The Punjabi conscience is hurt when a Punjabi is tortured even if he belongs to a terrorist organisation
“Monday’s appearance in the Supreme Court (SC) of the missing Adiala prisoners,” wrote a columnist, “was a reminder
News on Balochistan continues to be shaped by the state’s dominant narrative: Of a province that is, and always has been, rightfully Pakistani. But a cursory look at a Baloch version of events – rarely if ever (re)presented in the Pakistani media – paints another picture. A picture not of agreements and friendship. But of betrayal.
Abdul Wahab Baloch is afraid to talk on the phone. In 2008, he was picked up by security agencies after leading a rally through Karachi protesting the 10th anniversary of Chagai-I – the notorious
It was July 2010. I was in Karachi back then for my CA. One day I received a text on my mobile phone from a Baloch friend that bullet-riddled body of missing Faizullah Baloch has been found. We couldn’t believe it. Abduction by intelligence agencies was a daily routine in Balochistan. But we
Brahamdagh Bugti’s sister, and Mehran Baluch’s sister-in-law Zamur Bugti (34), and 13-year old daughter, Jaana Domki were visiting the house of Zamur’s maternal uncle after attending a wedding ceremony of a cousin at Carlton Hotel in D.H.A, Karachi. They were accompanied by their driver (Barkat Baloch) and a helper’s 12 year old daughter. They were travelling in a black Toyota sedan (Registration: ANR-353). The car also had an MPA Balochistan plate on it.
Between 1 and 1:30 AM on the 31st of January, shortly after leaving the uncle’s house, a
Source: LUBP
Baloch Resident Party’s president and one of the most loved Baloch Leader Brahamdagh bugti’s sister and niece along with their driver gunned down at Gizri Bridge, Karachi early Tuesday.
Zamu Domki, her daughter Jana Domki and driver Barkat Baloch, were returning home at their DHA based resident
The long-standing issue of strategically important and resource rich Balochistan requires more attention than it has received ever since Pakistan’s inception. Balochistan being country’s largest but most unprivileged region has witnessed a lot of contrite crimes against its dismantled majority leading it to a sinister climax wherefrom repeal may be near-impossible. After 1948, 1954, 1961 and 1977 the region is currently going through its fifth insurgency which was ignited after the brutal assassination of Baloch leader Nawab Akbar Bugti in 2006 by General Musharraf in his dictatorial regime.
While elite media and human rights organizations are currently busy in projecting Sherry Rehman (Pakistan’s new Ambassador to the USA) as a champion of human rights in Pakistan, here is a first opportunity for Ambassador Rehman to demonstrate her commitment to human rights not only in Pakistan but also internationally.
A dead body that had been found dumped in the Aap Sar area of Turbat two days ago was identified on Thursday (24 Nov 2011) as being that of Baloch Republican Party (BRP) Central Informational Secretary Jalel Reki.
According to the victim’s father, Jalil Reki was whisked away on February 13, 2009, by a group of armed men
Imran Khan has organized no dharnas against Baloch genocide and Shia genocide
Amnesty warned that the rise in disappearances and bodies being dumped in Balochistan has aggravated political tensions. Photo- Dawn
Cross-posted from The Baloch Hal
An Imposed Hero
Every day has a new reason why Balochistan must continue to remain unstable. While the assassination attempts on the lives of Governor Nawab Zulfiqar Ali Magsi and Chief Minister Nawab Mohammad Aslam Raisani still reverberate in our minds, the murders of two Baloch journalists add to our pessimism about a positive change in the state of affairs in the largest province.
In a fresh development which may contribute to chaos and disorder in some parts of Balochistan, the Frontier Corps (FC) arrested the provincial president of Jamori Watan Party (JWP) Shahzain Bugti. The FC says it received information from its “reliable sources” about the jounior Bugti coming from Pak- Afghan border district Chaman with a large quantity of newly purchased weapons hidden in all 12 cars in the convoy. Bugti’s convoy was intercepted at a check post near Baleli in the outskirts of Quetta. The Baloch leader was arrested and detained at FC headquarters.
According to Major General Ubaidullah, the Inspector General of the Frontier Corps (FC), Shahzain refused to allow checking of his van in spite of three-hour long negotiations with him. So far, no case has been registered against the Bugti leader because the officials say are still investigating him and hoping to get more information about ‘hidden weapons’.
Shahzain was quoted by a private news channel saying that the weapons actually belonged to the FC and he was being falsely implicated in the drug smuggling case. According to BBC Urdu Service, he said was innocent and a conspiracy had been plotted against him.
Shahzain has a valid point as common sense suggests that even the worst of all fools will not fill 12 vans with weapons and drive straight on a regular route with every possibility of being stopped, searched and arrested at umpteen of omnipresent check posts in and outside the provincial capital. As the new development was unfolding, the Bugti grandson flaunted ridiculously about his “foreign contacts” by saying he was going to contact the U.S embassy in Islamabad. On the other hand, Shahzain’s father Talal Bugti, who is the central head of the JWP, convened an urgent meeting of the party and condemned the arrest. The JWP meeting also deliberated over the future course of action in the wake of this fresh unanticipated development.
Shahzain is in fact the most overrated Baloch leader in the views of the Pakistani media. While he is a nobody in Balochistan’s complex politics, no other leader has gained so many opportunities of being depicted as a hero. The latest development once again looks like making a hero out of a non-entity in order to give birth to fake heroes to maintain the status quo in the province. A similar attempt was made much earlier by detaining Shahzain in the alleged custody of the Military Intelligence. There was a great fanfare and media hype about his release but the fellow did not emerge as a hero of the Baloch people. Yet again, the Sharifs of the Pakistan Muslim League also arranged a momentous trip to Lahore for father Talal and son Shahzain Bugti to present them as the genuine leaders of Balochistan.
Thelocal media in Lahore extensively covered the father-son yatra with over-excitment. They pretended to snub the fact that Jamori Watan Party was long dead with the demise of late Nawab Bugti while the father-son team had become less popular than Nawabzada Bramdagh Bugti who had reconfigured JWP as the Baloch Republican Party (JWP).
Shahzain’s arrest coincides with the time when he announced to lead a long march of the Bugti internally displaced persons (IDPs) from Kashmor to Dera Bugti. The displaced Bugtis, who are a victim of former dictator General Musharraf’s antagonistic policies, have been yearning for a while to return home after six years of unmitigated sufferings. The long march, as announced, is scheduled for January 28th but political pundits see it skeptically because Shahzain had announced such plans on plenty of occasions in the past but never implemented them.
We urge the newly appointed Inspector General of the Frontier Corps (FC) to refrain from becoming a tool in the hands of the Establishment by hatching such ugly dramas on Balochistan’s political scene. Shahzain has a long way to go to become a popular leader of the Baloch masses, a goal he can soley accomplish by his own actions not by that of FC. Pitching him against cousin Bramdagh Bugti or any other Baloch leader is insane and a mere extension of Islamabad’s divide and rule game in Balochistan. Likewise, if such dramas backfire, moderate and pro-Islamabad leaders like Shahzain may also end up joining the separatist block.
Source: Express, 24 and 25 Dec 2010
This is in reference to “Kill the sectarian killers: Will Pakistan follow the Iranian example?” published by a fellow editor, Sarah Khan, on December 20, 2010. In her post, Sarah was giving the example of how Iran executed 11 members of Jundullah in response to the horrific suicide bombing that killed 39 Shia mourners and wounded another 100 in Chabahar, Iran.
While I am completely opposed to the State sponsored militias that have killed thousands of Pakistanis, I don’t think we should be following the Iranian example in this particular instance. That being said, Sarah Khan is spot on in her assessment:
“the ISI is known for its support to jihadi-sectarian groups and the judiciary remains infested with the pro-Jamaat-e-Islami (pro-Taliban) judges.”
While our media is infested with jihadi sympathizers like Hamid Mir, Shahid Masood, Ansar Abbasi, Javed Chaudhry etc and our judiciary is increasingly being viewed as a B-Team for the jihadis, Iran has a pathetic human rights record for its treatment of all those who are against the hardliners and the theocrats whose victims include women, minorities, Bahais, Baluchis, Kurds, secular Shias (the vast majority of the population) and all the senior Ayatullahs who do not agree with the theocratic construct of Vilayat-e-Faqih.
In this regard, the Balochs and Kurds are persecuted in Iran on the basis of ethnicity and not sect and those who were executed in Chabahar were arrested before the horrible and equally condemnable suicide bombing of Shias. The sequence of events that is being played out in Iran and Pakistan with regard to the Baloch is a dirty game that seeks to delegitimize the nationalist aspirations of the Baloch.
Since the annexation and division of the former State of Qalat by Pakistan and Iran, the Balochs have maintained their genuine nationalist concerns that range from provincial autonomy and a dignified existence to full independence from both countries.
In Pakistan, they have faced several military actions and the last one is still ongoing even if it does not have the attention of our chic urban types. Of course, we all know how the judiciary has backtracked on the issue of missing persons that include thousands of illegally detained Baloch youth along with a dozen or less shadowy Islamist types; the latter 2-3 like Aafia Siddiqi and Masood Janjua are the only ones that matter to the consciousness of our Jamaat-e-Islami influenced urban types.
In order to delegitimize the Baloch struggle, our establishment has, in typical fashion, added a toxic blend of sectarian fanaticism to the mix. It has continued the laboratory experiment that it started in District Jhang and used the same formula to create the Jundullah: a Wahabi/Deobandi militia comprised of a few brainwashed Baloch youth. This allows the establishment to kill two birds with one stone. On the one hand, the Jundullah have been indoctrinated with a virulent anti-Shia ideology that makes them the perfect foot soldiers to kill Shias in Pakistan and Iran. Furthermore, their fanatical acts of violence also damage the Baloch nationalist struggle.
The Baloch struggle is secular in nature and rooted in a rich and diverse cultural tradition. Until the Saudi-financed and establishment facilitated radicalization of some Baloch children, the Zikri (a mystical Sufi sect) school of thought formed the cornerstone of Baloch religious sentiment. The radicalization and subsequent acts of senseless violence by Jundullah allows the establishment to malign and de-legitimize the largely nationalist Baloch struggle. This is a tactic that is similar to the one used to drown out the moderate and nationalist sentiment in Kashmir and replace it with sectarian Jihadis from Punjab.
In prosecuting our jihadi sectarian murderers, we should never be emulating Iran. In this regard, the aims of those who want a just and peaceful society are up against an Islamofascist judiciary that clearly has the interests of jihadis like Hafiz Saeed, Mullah Abdul Aziz, Masood Azhar and sectarian murderers like Malik Ishaq of Sipah-e-Sahaba and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. That this judiciary is entrenched and dictating its regressive agenda to elected representatives of Pakistan should be a lesson to those who supported the movement to restore compromised and shadowy bureaucrats; those who have a solid tradition of backing military coups and committing judicial murder.
While the Taliban have been given a free hand to slaughter Pushtuns, Shias, Ahmadis and Barelvis and while their affiliates such as Jamaat-e-Islami and Sipah-e-Sahaba are allowed to lynch Christains, our “educated” bourgeoisie and elites are continuing to live in denial and the la-la land of conspiracy theory. They lack the moral and intellectual clarity to admit that an increasing number of fellow Muslims (extremist Deobandis and Wahhabis) are committing violence on Pakistan’s diverse ethnic, sectarian and religious minority groups. They have a tendency to continually blame Jews, Hindus and Blackwater, even as the various jihadi groups proudly own up to the latest act of terrorism. In this they are abetted by a media that mostly takes its cues from the establishment and therefore completely dishonest.
We need no cues from Iran or Saudi Arabia to bring murderers to justice. What we need is support for democracy and the will to protest and call out the proxies of the establishment which are the judiciary and the media – the Teen Jeem coalition!
Related articles:
In defence of Punjabis: Stop target killing of Punjabi settlers in Balochistan
Nationalist, sectarian and militant networks are killing teachers, damaging education and limiting development in Balochistan, a US-based rights group said Monday.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) said at least 22 teachers and other education professionals were killed by suspected militants between January 2008 and October 2010 in the province of Balochistan.
Since 2008, more than 200 teachers have transferred to either Quetta, or have moved out of the province. Nearly another 200 are in the process of transferring, the group said.
Balochistan has, this year, seen a surge in separatist violence, sectarian attacks and killings blamed on the Taliban or other militant groups.
“To educate or to seek education in Balochistan today means risking your life and your family’s,” said Ali Dayan Hasan, senior South Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch.
“By perpetrating such atrocities, Baloch nationalists are harming Balochistan’s development instead of advancing it,” he added.
Killing teachers, harming students and targeting schools “only increase Baluchistan’s problems and deprive its youth of the benefits of education,” said HRW in its new 40-page report documenting dozens of attacks.
“Fearing for their safety, many teachers have sought transfers, further burdening what is already the worst educational system in Pakistan in terms of education opportunities and outcomes,” the report said.
The education sector has been targeted disproportionately because militants view them as representatives of the Pakistani state and symbols of perceived Punjabi military oppression, HRW said.
In ethnic Baloch areas, schools are often understaffed, so any further loss of teachers severely jeopardises children’s chances of an education.
HRW also said that many teachers who stay on the job complain about being so preoccupied by security that their teaching has been adversely affected.
In October, Amnesty International called on Pakistan to investigate the alleged torture and killing of more than 40 Baloch political leaders and activists against a backdrop of Pakistani military activities in the province.
Source: Express Tribune
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