Pakistan: Arrests of Baloch leaders continue as police crackdown on protests in Karachi
Karachi: As police clamped down on the demonstration in Karachi, Sammi Deen, the central leader of the Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC), a prominent Baloch human rights organization, and Lala Wahab, the deputy organizer, were taken into custody on Monday.
Following their incarceration, BYC released a forceful statement declaring that Pakistan’s crackdown on its leadership will not quiet the group.
The BYC denounced the “barbaric arrest of BYC leadership” as an “act of state terrorism by the fascist Pakistani regime against the Baloch people.”
“This shameful and oppressive action reveals the totalitarian savagery of Pakistan, where the state machinery can ruthlessly silence any voices calling for justice and human rights. The fascist apparatus of the Pakistani state, working with the Sindh police and the province administration headed by the Pakistan Peoples Party, has once again shown its heinous intention to crush any kind of nonviolent opposition, the post said.
According to the statement, Pakistan’s “long-standing genocidal policy against the Baloch people”—which includes widespread repression, extrajudicial murders, and enforced disappearances—includes the kidnapping-style arrests of the human rights advocates.
It also emphasized how colonial-era laws like Section 144, which penalize dissent, are a last-ditch effort to hide the brutality of the state.
“Dr. Mahrang Baloch, Sammi Deen Baloch, Lala Wahab Baloch, Bebagar Baloch, and other Baloch activists and our leadership are still being treated by the Pakistani state, which was established on the basis of militaristic oppression. The article went on to say, “This blatant tyranny not only violates democratic freedoms but also reveals the Pakistani state’s duplicitous and hypocritical stance towards the international community.”
In its closing statement, BYC urged international human rights groups to hold the Pakistani government responsible for its crimes against humanity and atrocities.
Pakistan’s fascist persecution, which continues to transgress all standards of justice, freedom, and human decency, cannot be ignored by the international community. There is no more stillness. The international community must denounce and punish the Pakistani government for its state-sponsored terrorism. “Balochistan will resist—the voices of the oppressed will not be silenced,” it concluded.
The treatment of Baloch activists and their detention have been denounced by international authorities. The UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders, Mary Lawlor, criticized the Quetta crackdown on demonstrators.
Wider worries about how Pakistani authorities are treating opposition in Balochistan have been raised by the arrests.
