In an alarming deviation from democratic principles, Pakistan law enforcement agencies reportedly used force to diffuse a peaceful protest in Islamabad. In a recent article by JURIST, on-site law students reported the use of water cannons, tear gas, arbitrary detentions, and physical abuse against the Baloch people protesting against state crimes.
The protest reportedly drew attention to the alleged extrajudicial killing of Balaach Mola Bakhsh, and many such unjust actions that have sparked a 1600 km long march. Under the banner ‘March against Baloch Genocide,’ including Baloch women and their families, the march aimed to highlight state crimes, such as forced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, arbitrary detentions, and torture in the Balochistan region.
Violence in Balochistan, which has been dealing with an insurgency for the past two decades, has resulted in widespread disappearances and bodies dumped along roadsides. The crisis that has evolved involves Baloch nationalist groups accusing the state of exploiting the province’s resources, the military clashing with these groups, and the local populations waiting anxiously for news of their missing loved ones. A commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances has reported over 9,000 cases across Pakistan since 2011. Baloch national organizations, however, purport that the actual figure is around 23,000 cases.
Pakistan’s security agencies have often been implicated in forced disappearances and extrajudicial killings, accusations echoed by victims’ families, journalists, politicians, and even the high courts of Pakistan. Recently, Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani of the Islamabad High Court entreated:
“The entire blame is falling on the agencies. Did the agency of some other country pick up the people? No agency has an exemption to pick up anyone they want. Do such things happen in a civilized society?”
The state’s handling of peaceful Baloch protesters in Islamabad gives further fuel to these allegations. The detention, torture, and forceful eviction of protesters suggests a state hostile to its people and fearful of the truth. The act of mistreating protestors not only amounts to forceful kidnapping and killing without a fair trial but infringes upon a litany of human rights— including the right to association, protest, truthful disclosure on disappearances and provision of effective remedies.
The urgent action includes an immediate cessation of these practices, providing clarity on victims’ fates, upholding fair judicial proceedings or ensuring releases, the practice of international human rights standards, allowing freedom of association to the victims’ families, and giving comprehensive reparations to all affected parties. Strict adherence to this comprehensive approach can ensure justice and healing to the victims while observing human rights. The alternative, persistent disdain for these rights, could lead to repeating history and further state failures.