Balochistan Point Voice of Nation
30 August is marked as The International Day of the Disappeared to draw the attention of responsible authorities and human rights organizations towards forcefully disappeared people in the world. On International Day of the Disappearance, Human rights organizations conduct seminars and press briefings to focus the burning issue in world. The case of missing persons is not new in Pakistan; however, this question is still unanswerable in Balochistan.
According to Voice For Baloch Missing Persons (VBMP), an organisation striving for recovery of missing persons, more than 16000 thousand people have been forcefully disappeared, while more than 600 bodies have been recovered since June 2010 . Despite, judiciary attention there has not been any success and missing persons, rather than being released safely they are being killed and dumped.
Although attention of some international organizations there have not been any remarkable moves for safe recovery of forcefully disappeared Baloch persons. Recently, The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) and Human Rights Watch Thursday urged the Pakistan government to affirm its commitment for ending enforced disappearances by ratifying the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance.
“Despite repeated denials by Pakistan’s security agencies, the Supreme Court of Pakistan has acknowledged and human rights groups have documented evidence of the involvement of intelligence and security agencies in enforced disappearances particularly in the troubled Balochistan province.” Says report.
The ICJ and Human Rights Watch called on the Pakistani government to carry out a full review of security-related legislation and ensure that all laws conform to Pakistan’s international law obligations to prevent such violations. “All disappeared persons must be released or, if charged with recognizable crimes, brought without further delay before a court to see if their continuing pearances.” Urged ICJ and HRW
On the International Day of Missing Person, the Voice for Baloch Missing person conducted a protest outside the Quetta press club to gain International Organizations and responsible powers in Pakistan. They appealed to the UN, Amnesty International and other international organisations to play their active role for recovery of missing persons and apply pressure on the government to discover those persons, saying the issue of Balochistan could not be addressed without addressing the issue of missing persons. VBMP has also established a token hunger strike camp outside the Quetta Press Club for the for the last three years , which is the longest peaceful protest in the history of modern world for the recovery of missing persons.
No doubt, the sufferer families of Missing persons in Balochistan have raised their voice and now the world community is becoming aware of this humanitarian catastrophe, however, it is another question why the international community is silent on this issue. The perpetrators or involved elements in the ‘Abduct, kill and dump, who think through this tact they will solve Baloch issue and will calm people by terrifying , are quite wrong. The establishment needs to review its rough policy in Balochistan and to avoid being slandered among civilized communities of the world and international human rights organizations , the responsible authorities have to release missing persons if the state has political will and wants to make ways for talks for the solution of Balochistan issue.
Editor-in-Chief
The Balochistan Point
Published in The Balochistan Point on August 30, 2013
