Families of missing Baloch march for justice

by Asad Hashim – Al Jazeera

Relatives of people who have been disappeared or killed in Pakistan march more than 2,000km seeking UN intervention.

Mundera, Pakistan – Qadeer Rekhi is a long way from home.

More than 2,150 kilometres away, in fact – that’s how much ground he and a small group of others, mostly women and children, have covered by foot since they began their long march on October 27 from Quetta, the capital of Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan province. They are due to finish their journey on Friday with their arrival in Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital.

Baluch protesters walk across Pakistan to spotlight army abuse

(Reuters) – Relatives of Baloch students, activists and ordinary people who have gone missing in a lawless Pakistani province appealed to the United Nations for help on Thursday after walking across Pakistan for months to draw attention to their plight.

Bodies of hundreds of pro-independence activists have been found across the Baluchistan province and many more have gone missing in the past several years, in a little-reported conflict in a remote corner on Pakistan’s Iranian border.

UN human rights office urges death penalty moratorium amid spike in executions

21 February 2014 – The United Nations human rights office today urged the Iranian Government to immediately halt executions, after voicing deep concern about reports that 80, and possibly up to 95, people have been put to death in the country since the beginning of this year.

“We regret that the new Government has not changed its approach to the death penalty and continues to impose capital punishment for a wide range of offences,” Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), told reporters in Geneva.

PAKISTAN: More than 100 dead bodies from three mass graves were found in one district of Balochistan

The UN and international human rights organisations must send fact finding missions to probe the illegal disposal of Baloch people in mass graves

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) expresses shock and deep concern over the discovery of mass graves in Balochistan; it is suspected that these graves are of Baloch missing persons who were arrested and subsequently extrajudicially killed. A large number of family members gathered around the places of Tootak village, district Khuzdar to inquire about their loved ones who have been missing for many years. However, the police and other security forces refused them permission to try and identify the bodies and baton charged the people to disperse them.

From Social Media

NEWS of th over @TahirImran plz W Vsh TV 11mor #Brutalited B found n #KHUZDAR #MassGrave @BalaachMarri @FaizMBaluch pic.twitter.com/2WmSxjQxGS

— #SaveBSOAzadLeader (@shaysholan2) January 27, 2014

Balochistan Quake-hit Areas Under Severe Food Scarcity: UN

: Almost a month has been passed to the deadly Balochistan earthquake and the United Nationas (UN)’s Food Security Cluster (FSC) in a report issued on Wednesday cautioned for another disaster in the strife-torn province as majority of the earthquake survivors are facing acute food shortage.

Human rights violations in Balochistan: BNF letter to UN

Your Excellency
Mr. Ban Ki-moon
Secretary General
United Nations

Subject: Human rights violations in Balochistan

Dear Sir,

The Baloch National Front (BNF), an alliance of Baloch nationalist parties, would like to draw Your Excellency’s attention towards your recent visit to Pakistan which caused heartbreaks among the Baloch people.

Your Excellency, in a speech delivered on August 30 in Switzerland, had said:

COMMENT: Mascots, spurious legitimacy and predatory exploitation — Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur

This so-called ‘future of the world’, if it is allowed to be built, would jeopardise Baloch economic and political rights and even their existence

The malady of loot of resources by predatory establishments in connivance and partnership with equally predatory multinationals and countries is globally common. The Africa Progress Report produced every May by a panel of 10 prominent figures headed by former Secretary General of the United Nations Kofi Annan highlights the problem. Annan, in a BBC interview after its release, had said that tax avoidance, secret mining deals and financial transfers were depriving Africa of the benefits of its resources boom. Likening it to taking food off the tables of the poor he said, “Africa loses twice as much money through these loopholes as it gets from donors.” The report said that between 2010 and 2012 the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) lost $ 1.3 billion in revenues, equivalent to double DRC’s combined health and education budgets, in five under-priced mining concessions sold in highly opaque and secretive deals. No wonder the ‘Save the Children’ charity says the DRC is the world’s worst place to be a mother in. Naturally, the beneficiaries like Martin Kabwelulu, DRC’s mining minister, had termed the report a ‘pack of lies’.

Protest held outside UN against Balochistan unrest

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GENEVA: A large demonstration was held outside the United Nations here on the occasion of the 19th Session of UN Human Rights Council to condemn the human rights violations in Balochistan and ask for the end of military operation in the restive insurgency-hit province.

The demonstration was organised and led by Mehran Baloch, Balochistan’s representative at the United Nations and Noordin Mengal. The participants traveled from London, Germany, Canada, France and Brussels to take part in the protest. World Sindhi Congress, Baloch Human Rights Council and United Kashmir People’s National Party also joined the Baloch demonstrators to support their demands.

A voice for the Baloch suspended from the UN Economic and Social Council

United Nations: The Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) today recommended 13 entities for consultative status with the Economic and Social Council, postponed its consideration of 31 applications and recommended a two-year suspension for another, Interfaith International.

8,000 Balochs still missing: BRP

KARACHI – Baloch Republican Party (BRP) on Friday claimed that 8,000 Baloch political workers were still missing across the Balochistan, as the military action was still witnessing in different parts of the province, said the party leaders while addressing the press conference held here at Karachi Press Club.