Human rights abuses in the province ofBalochistan refers to the human rights violations that are occurring in the ongoing insurgency in Balochistan. The situation has drawn concern from the international community,[1][2] The human rights situation in Balochistan is credited to the long-running conflict between Baloch nationalists (as well as Baloch militant organisations such as the Balochistan Liberation Army) and Pakistani security forces.
Brad Adams, director of the HRW Asia Branch, said that the Pakistani government has not done enough to stop the widespread human rights abuses in the region,[3] which include torture, forced disappearances of those suspected of either terrorism or opposition to the Pakistani military, ill treatment of captured combatants or criminals, and extrajudicial killings.[4] Separatist militants have also committed widespread abuse according to Human Rights Watch (HRW), The Baloch Separatists militants are responsible for several attacks on schools, teachers, and students in the province with the aim of ethnically cleansing the province.[5][6]
Before joining Pakistan, Balochistan consisted of four princely states: Makran, Las Bela, Kharan, and Kalat. Three of these, Makran, Las Bela, and Kharan willingly joined Pakistan in 1947 during the dissolution of the British Indian Empire.[9] However, Kalat, led by the Khan of Kalat, Ahmed Yaar Khan, chose independence as this was one of the options given to all of the princely states by Clement Attlee at the time.[10]Muhammad Ali Jinnah persuaded Yar Khan to accept Pakistani rule but the Khan stalled for time. After a period of negotiations, Khan finally decided to accede to Pakistan on 27 March 1948.[11] The Khan's brother Prince Kareem Khan declared independence and fled to Afghanistan to seek aid and begin an armed struggle that failed. By June 1948, Baluchistan in whole became a part of Pakistan.[12]
There were a further three insurgencies in the region after 1948: 1958–1959, 1962–1963, and 1973–1977, and a fifth nationalistic movement which began in 2002.[13] The 1958–1959 conflict was caused by the imposition of the One Unit plan which had been implemented in 1955. This led to further resistance, and by 1957 Nauroz Khan announced his intention to secede; Pakistan declared martial law one day later.[14] Pakistan bombed separatist hideouts and deployed tanks with support from artillery. Nauroz was arrested and died while in prison; his family members were hanged for treason.[15] According to Dan Slater, pro-independence feelings in East Pakistan and Balochistan increased in parity with continuing military intervention in the political arena.[14]
According to journalist Ahmed Rashid writing in 2014, estimates of the number of disappeared in Balochistan "are between hundreds and several thousand."[16] According to Voice for Baloch Missing Persons (VBMP) around 5,228 Baloch have gone missing from 2001 to 2017.[17] While according to a 8 December 2005, statement by the then Pakistani interior minister Aftab Sherpao, an estimated 4,000 people from Balochistan were in the custody of the authorities[18] having been detained in the province between 2002–2005.[citation needed] Of this number only 200 were taken to court and the rest were being held incommunicado according to author Manan Dwivedi writing in 2009.[citation needed]
In December 2018, Balochistan National Party (Mengal) (BNP-M) leader, Akhtar Mengal presented a list of 5,000 missing persons to the newly formed government of Imran Khan. BNP-M leaders claim that there has been a noticeable decline in enforced disappearances since BNP-M's agreement with Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI). BNP-M also claims that hundreds of alleged victims have been reunited with their families.[19]
A senior Pakistani provincial security official claims that missing person figures are 'exaggerated', that 'in Balochistan, insurgents, immigrants who fled to Europe, and even those who have been killed in military operations are declared as missing persons'.[17] Reports have shown that many people have fled the province to seek asylum in other countries because of the unrest caused by separatist militants.
Pakistani authorities have acknowledged that disappearances happen. In 2011, the government established a commission which registered 5,369 missing persons complaints. The commission claims to have traced more than 3,600 people.[19]
On June 3, 2012, Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani directed Balochistan's chief minister to take special measures to trace the missing persons.[20]
In October 2018, Balochistan National Party (Mengal) (BNP-M) claimed that around 300 missing persons had returned to their homes.[21] Similarly in January 2019, Voice for Baloch Missing Persons (VBMP) decided to suspend their protest after dozens of missing people returned to their homes. VBMP gave a list of 110 missing people which the VBMP expects the government to recover within two months.[22]
In 2016, based on government documents obtained by the BBC, nearly 1,000 dead bodies of suspected armed militants and political activists have been found in Balochistan from 2010 - 2016. The government states that the dumped bodies include those of insurgent groups who died fighting amongst each other. Activists said that the figures point to large-scale extrajudicial killings.[23] As of 8 December 2005, the federal Interior Minister announced that approximately 4,000+ individuals had been apprehended in Balochistan since the start of that year. However, the identities, whereabouts, and charges against a significant number of these detainees remain undisclosed.[24]
Baloch insurgent movements have also been accused by the Human Rights Organisation[which?] of grave human rights abuses in Balochistan, including targeted killings of ethnic non-Baloch civilians.[citation needed] This has caused an economic brain drain in the province. According to the Chief Minister of Balochistan, Nawab Aslam Raisani, "a large number of professors, teachers, engineers, and barbers are leaving the province for fear of attacks. This inhuman act will push the Baloch nation at least one century back. The Baloch nation will never forgive whoever is involved in target killings." Raisani noted that these immigrant settlers had been living in Balochistan for centuries and called their targeting by Baloch insurgents "a crime against humanity".[25]
Journalists, teachers, students, and human rights defenders have been targeted in Balochistan according to the South Asia Terrorism Portal.[26] According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), Baloch Separatist militants are responsible for attacks on schools, teachers, and students in the province.[27] As a result, many teachers have sought transfer to secure areas such Quetta or have moved out of the province entirely.[28] Moreover, Separatist groups have also claimed responsibility for killing Journalists in the province.[29][30][31][32]
Human Right Organisation have held Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) responsible for ethnic cleansing in the province as Brahamdagh Bugti (alleged leader of BLA), during a TV interview on 15 April 2009, urged separatists to kill non-Baloch residing in Balochistan. His actions allegedly lead to the death of 500 non-Baloch citizens in the province.[33]
Apart from Human Right Organisations, Baloch separatists themselves have accused each other of being involved in human rights violations.[34] Separatists accuse each other of being involved in extortion, kidnapping, and even raping local Baloch.[34]
The U.S. Department of State estimates that in 2012 at least 690 civilians were victims of violence in Balochistan. A report from the Interior Ministry in 2012 stated that Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Lashkar-e-Balochistan, Baloch Musalla Difa Tanzeem, and the Baloch Liberation Army were involved in violent disturbances. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan estimates that these groups and others killed 2,050 innocent persons and injured another 3,822 in 2012.[26]
Military and paramilitary abuses
The Frontier Corps (FC), Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency,[35] and other groups have been accused of "a decade-long campaign" of "pick up and dump" in which "Baloch nationalists, militants, or even innocent bystanders are picked up, disappeared, tortured, mutilated, and then killed".[36] Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency has been accused of massive human rights abuses in Balochistan by Human Rights Watch, with the enforced disappearance of hundreds of nationalists and activists. In 2008 alone, an estimated 1102 people were disappeared from the region.[35] There have also been reports of torture.[37] An increasing number of bodies are being found on roadsides, having been shot in the head.[38] In July 2011, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan issued a report on illegal disappearances in Balochistan which identified ISI and Frontier Corps as the perpetrators. According to journalist Malik Siraj Akbar, as of May 2015, "dozens of people are losing their lives every day" in "extra judicial killings committed by the Pakistani security forces" in the province of Balochistan.[39] However, Pakistan security officials have rejected all allegations against them.
In a 2012 statement to the Supreme Court of Pakistan, the Pakistani government denied allegations of the use of secret operations or death squads in Balochistan.[40] Major General Obaid Ullah Khan Niazi, commander of the 46,000 paramilitary Frontier Corps (FC) stationed in Balochistan, claimed that "militants are using FC uniforms to kidnap people and malign our good name."[41] Similarly, Baloch separatist militants have also been found using military uniforms which resemble the ones used by Frontier Corps while carrying out their activities.[42]
Balochistan's former chief minister, Sardar Akhtar Jan Mengal, in a statement to the Supreme Court, claimed that the current civil disturbances in Balochistan were a direct result of "enforced disappearances".[43]
Religious persecution of minorities
According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP)[44][45] and Al Jazeera,[46] there has been a surge in religious extremism in Balochistan, with banned terrorist organizations such as Lashkar-i-Jhangvi and Pakistani Taliban targeting Hindus, Shias (including Hazaras), and Zikris, resulting in the migration of over 210,000 Shias, Zikris, and Hindus from Baluchistan to other parts of Pakistan.[47] A further 90,000 ethnic Punjabis have also fled due to campaigns against Punjabis by Balochi militants.[48]
In 2005, 32 Hindus were killed by shots fired from the government side near Nawab Akbar Bugti's residence during bloody clashes between Bugti tribesmen and paramilitary forces. The shooting left the Hindu residential locality near Bugti's residence badly hit.[51]
Shia Muslims of various ethnic backgrounds make up at least 20% of the total population of Pakistan[citation needed]. The Hazara ethnic minority has been facing discrimination in Balochistan Province for a long time, and violence perpetrated against the community has risen sharply in recent years.[52][53][54] Since the year 2000, over 2000 Shia Hazara community members, including many women and children, have been killed or injured in Quetta.[55] Most of them have been the victims of terrorist attacks by Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, which is a Sunni Muslim militant organization affiliated with Al-Qaeda and Taliban.[56] Repression against the Shi'ite Muslims began in 1998 with the assassination of Gen Musa Khan's son Hassan Musa in Karachi,[57] and worsened in Pakistan after the September 11 attacks and the expulsion of the Taliban from Afghanistan.[58][59]
Shias have also been targeted by Baloch Separatist militants. Shia pilgrims passing through the rigid terrain of Balochistan are common targets for Baloch separatists. Shias are targeted mainly because they are not ethnically Baloch.[60] Moreover, it is reported that the Balochistan Liberation Army had formed an alliance with Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan. Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan is another terrorist group known for their attacks against Shia Muslims.[60]
In 2003, 53 people died and 150 were critically injured in a suicide attack on the main Shia Friday mosque in Quetta.[57] On March 2, 2004, at least 42 persons were killed and more than 100 wounded when a procession of Shia Muslims was attacked by Sunni extremists at Liaquat Bazaar in Quetta.[61] On October 7, 2004, a car bomb killed 40 members of an extremist Sunni organization in Multan. 300 people died during 2006.[62] On December 28, 2009, as many as 40 Shias were killed in an apparent suicide bombing in Karachi. The bomber attacked a Shia procession which was held to mark Ashura.[63]
Many youth from the Hazara community have had to flee to Europe and Australia, often illegally, in order to escape the oppression.[57]
International reactions
The US government has expressed alarm at the reports of thousands Baloch separatists and Taliban insurgents disappearing at the hands of Pakistan's security forces and possibly being tortured or killed. A 2010 State Department report said that the Pakistani government made "limited progress" in advancing human rights.[64] Member of the European Parliament Marc Tarabella, in an article in The Parliament Magazine in 2015, wrote, "The main victims of this violence are the people of Balochistan who are being systematically targeted by paramilitary groups, allegedly sponsored by the Pakistani authorities. Extra-judicial killings and enforced disappearances are the most common practices".[65]
During an all-party meeting in Delhi, Indian prime minister Narendra Modi said that Pakistan "shall have to answer to the world for the atrocities committed by it against people in Baluchistan."[66] Modi's remarks came during the backdrop of the unrest in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir, a territory disputed between both countries, where Pakistan condemned India for the human rights abuses in Jammu and Kashmir.[67] Former President of AfghanistanHamid Karzai, also interviewed by the press while in India, appreciated Modi for his comments on Balochistan, and said that, "In Balochistan there is extreme suffering at the hands of extremists promoted by state structures in Pakistan. Therefore the people's concerns need to be addressed and aired."[68] Pakistan's foreign policy adviser Sartaj Aziz said Modi's statement was "self-incriminating", vindicating Pakistani accusations of Indian intelligence involvement in Balochistan's insurgency, and called it an attempt to divert attention from the Kashmir violence.[69] In the 33rd session of the United Nations Human Rights Council, India raised the issue of human rights abuses in Baluchistan, saying that "the people of Balochistan, amongst other provinces, have been waging for decades a bitter and brave struggle against their daily abuse and torture."[70]
Balochistan is a province of Pakistan. Located in the southwestern region of the country, Balochistan is the largest province of Pakistan by land area but is the least populated one. It is bordered by the Pakistani provinces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to the north-east, Punjab to the east and Sindh to the south-east; shares international borders with Iran to the west and Afghanistan to the north; and is bound by the Arabian Sea to the south. Balochistan is an extensive plateau of rough terrain divided into basins by ranges of sufficient heights and ruggedness. It has the world's largest deep sea port, the Port of Gwadar lying in the Arabian Sea.
The Baloch or Baluch are a nomadic, pastoral, ethnic group which speaks the Western Iranic Baloch language and is native to the Balochistan region of South and Western Asia, encompassing the countries of Pakistan, Iran, and Afghanistan. There are also Baloch diaspora communities in neighbouring regions, including in Central Asia, and the Arabian Peninsula.
Zikrism is a Mahdist minority Muslim group or sect found primarily in the Balochistan region of western Pakistan. Like Shia and Sunni Muslims, Zikri revere the Quran, unlike them they follow different prayer practices and believe the Mahdi has already come. The name Zikri comes from the Arabic word Dhikr.
The history of Balochistan refers to the history of the Balochistan region of Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan. Vague allusions to the region were found in Greek historical records of around 650 BCE. Prehistoric Balochistan dates to the Paleolithic.
The situation of Human Rights in Pakistan is complex as a result of the country's diversity, large population, its status as a developing country and a sovereign Islamic democracy with a mixture of both Islamic and secular law.
The Insurgency in Balochistan is an insurgency or revolt by Baloch separatist insurgents and various Islamist militant groups against the governments of Pakistan and Iran in the Balochistan region, which covers the Pakistani province of Balochistan, Iranian province of Sistan and Baluchestan, and Balochistan of southern Afghanistan. Rich in natural resources, this is the largest, least populated and least developed province in Pakistan and Iran, and armed groups demand greater control of the province's natural resources and political autonomy. Baloch separatists have attacked civilians from other ethnicities throughout the province. In the 2010s, attacks against the Shia community by sectarian groups—though not always directly related to the political struggle—have risen, contributing to tensions in Balochistan. In Pakistan, the ethnic separatist insurgency is low-scale but ongoing mainly in southern Balochistan, as well as sectarian and religiously motivated militancy concentrated mainly in northern and central Balochistan.
The Fourth Balochistan Conflict was a five-year military conflict in Balochistan, the largest province of Pakistan, between the Pakistan Army and Baloch separatists and tribesmen that lasted from 1973 to 1977.
The Balochistan Liberation Army, is a Baloch ethnonationalist militant separatist organization based in Afghanistan. BLA's first recorded activity was during the summer of 2000, after it claimed credit for a series of bombing attacks on Pakistani authorities. BLA is listed as a terrorist organization by Pakistan, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Brahamdagh Khan Bugti or Brahumdagh Khan Bugti is the founder and leader of the Political Organisation Baloch Republican Party, a Baloch nationalist group which broke away from his uncle Talal Akbar Bugti's Jamhoori Watan Party in 2008. He is the grandson and tribal successor of Nawab Akbar Bugti, former chief minister and governor of the Balochistan province. He campaigns for the rights of Baloch people around Europe. As of 2018, he was living in self-imposed exile in Switzerland.
Balochistan is a historical region in Western and South Asia, located in the Iranian plateau's far southeast and bordering the Indian Plate and the Arabian Sea coastline. This arid region of desert and mountains is primarily populated by ethnic Baloch people.
Sectarian violence in Pakistan refers to violence directed against people and places in Pakistan motivated by antagonism toward the target's religious sect. As many as 4,000 Shia are estimated to have been killed in sectarian attacks in Pakistan between 1987 and 2007, and thousands more Shia have been killed by Salafi extremists from 2008 to 2014, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW). Sunni Sufis and Barelvis have also suffered from some sectarian violence, with attacks on religious shrines killing hundreds of worshippers, and some Deobandi leaders assassinated. Pakistan minority religious groups, including Hindus, Ahmadis, and Christians, have "faced unprecedented insecurity and persecution" in at least two recent years, according to Human Rights Watch. One significant aspect of the attacks in Pakistan is that militants often target their victims places of worship during prayers or religious services in order to maximize fatalities and to "emphasize the religious dimensions of their attack".
The Baloch Students Organization is a student organisation that campaigns for the students of Pakistan's Balochistan Province. It was founded as a student movement on 26 November 1967 in Karachi and remains the largest ethnic Baloch student body in the country. It got divided due to ideological differences. BSO Pajjar and BSO Mohiuddin are affiliated with the parliamentary framework of Pakistan. Dr Allah Nazar, founder of pro independence wing, in 2002 while he was studying in college, created a breakaway faction — BSO–Azad — that advocated struggle for an independent Balochistan based on pre-colonial Baloch country. The Pakistani government banned the BSO Azad on 15 March 2013, as a terrorist organisation.
Jumma Khan Marri is a senior Baloch political activist from Balochistan. He was formerly a member of Baloch separatist groups.
The 1973 raid on the Iraqi embassy in Pakistan was an armed infiltration carried out by Pakistan in February 1973 at the embassy of Ba'athist Iraq in Islamabad. The raid, carried out by the Pakistan Rangers and the Islamabad Police, was launched after the interception of information by Pakistani intelligence that uncovered large-scale covert Iraqi involvement in the supply of weapons and funds to militants waging an insurgency against Iran and Pakistan in the Balochistan region situated between the two countries. Following the embassy raid, an abundance of funds and Soviet armaments from Iraq that were meant for Baloch insurgents were seized by Pakistani forces, and the Iraqi ambassador to Pakistan as well as the embassy's staff were immediately expelled from Pakistan and declared personae non gratae. Pakistan's findings in the embassy raid heightened tensions between Iran and Iraq, which, in 1974, escalated into armed clashes over the Shatt al-Arab, a river that was formerly subject to a territorial dispute between the two nations that later served as one of the key factors that propelled them into a full-scale and protracted war in 1980 following the Iranian Revolution. The event led to a severe deterioration in Iraq–Pakistan relations and contributed to Pakistan's heavy backing of Iran during the latter's eight-year-long war with Iraq.
There are or have been a number of separatist movements in Pakistan based on ethnic and regional nationalism, that have agitated for independence, and sometimes fighting the Pakistan state at various times during its history. As in many other countries, tension arises from the perception of minority/less powerful ethnic groups that other ethnicities dominate the politics and economics of the country to the detriment of those with less power and money. The government of Pakistan has attempted to subdue these separatist movements.
The persecution of Hazaras in Quetta, is a series of ethnic or religious motivated attacks on Hazaras in Quetta, Pakistan.
On 16 February 2013, at least 91 people were killed and 190 injured after a bomb hidden in a water tank exploded at a market in Hazara Town on the outskirts of Quetta, the capital city of Balochistan, Pakistan. Most of the victims were members of the predominantly Shia Twelver ethnic Hazara community, and authorities expected the death toll to rise due to the large number of serious injuries. The Lashkar-e-Jhangvi group claimed responsibility for the blast, the second major attack against the Shia Hazaras in a month.
United Baloch Army was a militant group, fighting for the separation of Balochistan. The group has been designated as a terrorist organisation by the Pakistani government. The government of Pakistan banned the group on 15 March 2013. The group has also been classified as a terrorist organisation by Switzerland's government.
Forced disappearance in Pakistan originated during the military dictator General Pervez Musharraf. The practice continued during subsequent governments. The term missing persons is sometimes used as a euphemism. According to Amina Masood Janjua, a human rights activist and chairperson of Defence of Human Rights Pakistan, there are more than 5,000 reported cases of forced disappearance in Pakistan. Human rights activists allege that the law enforcement agencies in Pakistan are responsible for the cases of forced disappearance in Pakistan. However, the law enforcement agencies in Pakistan deny this and insist that many of the missing persons have either joined militant organisations such as the TTP in Afghanistan and other conflict zones or they have fled to be an illegal immigrant in Europe and died en route.
Terrorist incidents in Pakistan in 2018 include:
References
↑ Akbar, Malik Siraj (12 December 2011). "Balochistan – a human rights free zone". Dawn.
↑ Akbar, Malik Siraj (19 July 2018). "In Balochistan, Dying Hopes for Peace". The New York Times. Retrieved 25 September 2019. Increasing attacks by the Islamic State in Balochistan are connected to Pakistan's failed strategy of encouraging and using Islamist militants to crush Baloch rebels and separatists.
↑ Mazzetti, Mark; Schmitt, Eric; Savage, Charlie (23 July 2011). "Pakistan Spies on Its Diaspora, Spreading Fear". The New York Times. Retrieved 25 September 2019. Several Pakistani journalists and scholars in the United States interviewed over the past week said that they were approached regularly by Pakistani officials, some of whom openly identified themselves as ISI officials. The journalists and scholars said the officials caution them against speaking out on politically delicate subjects like the indigenous insurgency in Baluchistan or accusations of human rights abuses by Pakistani soldiers. The verbal pressure is often accompanied by veiled warnings about the welfare of family members in Pakistan, they said.
↑ Hasnat, Syed F. (2011). Global Security Watch—Pakistan (1sted.). Praeger. p.78. ISBN978-0-313-34697-2.
↑ Bennett Jones, Owen (2003). Pakistan: eye of the storm (2nd Reviseded.). Yale University Press. p.132. ISBN978-0300101478.
↑ Rashid, Ahmed (2008). Descent into Chaos: How the War Against Islamic Extremism is Being Lost in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia. Allen Lane. p.36. ISBN978-0-7139-9843-6.
1 2 Slater, Dan (2010). Ordering Power: Contentious Politics and Authoritarian Leviathans in Southeast Asia (1sted.). Cambridge University Press. p.283. ISBN978-0-521-16545-7.
↑ Khan, Adeel (2004). Politics Of Identity: Ethnic Nationalism And The State In Pakistan. Sage. p.116. ISBN978-0761933038.
↑ Akbar, Malik Siraj (17 May 2015). "Betrayal in Balochistan". The World Post. Retrieved 25 June 2015. In Pakistan, everyone says they have incontrovertible evidence about India's involvement in destabilizing Balochistan. They only won't share the evidence with you because they insist that when evidence is already too evident then why should one make the evident, evident?
↑ "Zikri community spiritual leader, Shia father-son duo killed in Pakistan". India.com. Retrieved 8 October 2016. Police said motor cycle-borne unidentified men opened fire on Mullai while he was returning home after solemnising the marriage of one of his devotees. The banned Balochistan Liberation Army claimed responsibility for the attack.
↑ Abbas, Zaffar (22 March 2005). "Journalists find Balochistan 'war zone'". BBC. Retrieved 26 December 2016. The Hindu residential locality that is close to Mr Bugti's fortress-like house was particularly badly hit. Mr Bugti says 32 Hindus were killed by firing from the government side in exchanges that followed an attack on a government convoy last Thursday.
↑ Siddique, Abubakar and Nasar, Khudainoor Pakistan's Tiny Hazara Minority Struggles To Survive October 04, 2011, Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty | RFERL.org
↑ B. Raman (26 September 2011). "Pakistan: Another Massacre of Hazaras in Balochistan By Pro Al Qaeda Elements"
1 2 "BLA and beyond". Daily Times. 3 July 2019. Shia pilgrims passing through the rigid terrains of Balochistan became their common target because they were non-Baloch (considered hostile by the BLA) and Shia (deemed to be killed by Taliban). Before making a sort of a merger with Taliban, the BLA started attacking armed forces, prompting Pakistan to declare it a terrorist outfit in its early days in 2006.
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