The World Baloch Organisation has launched an awareness campaign in New York City in a bid to highlight the alarming human rights situation in Balochistan. This comes as world leaders gather in the city to attend the annual United Nations general assembly.
As part of the campaign mobile billboards have been driving around the United Nations carrying messages such as “United Nations help end human rights abuses in Balochistan” urging world leaders to play their part and help end the human rights abuses suffered by the people of Balochistan.
The billboards also displayed messages such as “Baloch Lives also matter”, “Justice for Balochistan” and “UN must help recover missing people in Balochistan”, highlighting the grave issue of enforced disappearances in Balochistan, where thousands have been forcibly disappeared by Pakistan’s military and its intelligence agencies. Most are extra-judicially killed and their bodies dumped on roadsides bearing signs of extreme torture, others stay missing forever, Amnesty International has called it the “Kill and dump” policy. Victims include activists, teachers, students, doctors, intellectuals and journalists who have voiced their opinions against the military’s iron grip over the country. The military’s control over the local media is such that anyone reporting such incidents risks falling victim themselves. International NGO’s and Journalists are not given access to Balochistan where most of the cases of disappearances have been registered.
The billboards were seen driving around popular tourist sites and also outside the council on foreign relations where Pakistan’s Prime minister Imran Khan was attending a gathering.
According to official Pakistani figures, 5000 people have gone missing within the last ten years after being abducted by the state forces. Unofficial figures put the number much higher, up to 20,000 from Balochistan alone where Pakistani forces have been involved in a continuous military operation to counter the Baloch people’s struggle for rights, justice and equality.
Ethnic groups and religious minorities like the Baloch, Sindhi, Mohajir, Pashtun, Ahmadi, Shia and others are the primary victims of illegal abductions & enforced disappearances in Pakistan.
International human rights groups such as the Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have published extensive reports on cases of enforced disappearances & other massive human rights abuses in Balochistan. The reports term the enforced disappearances & extrajudicial murders the “Kill and Dump” policy by the Pakistani forces.
The organizers of the campaign have long been engaged in efforts to highlight the worsening human rights situation in Balochistan at international platforms, organizing events around Europe and in the United States and focusing on advocacy activities in the European Parliament, the US parliamentary houses, and the United Nations.
