Pakistan: Appeal for British Intervention

An Open Letter from the Baloch Human Rights Council (UK) forwarded by the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC)

November 29, 2010
Rt Hon. David Cameron
Prime Minister of Great Britain
London

PAKISTAN: Appeal for British Intervention to stop extrajudicial killings and disappearances in Balochistan

Dear Mr. Prime Minister,

We would like to draw your attention to the cold blooded murders of Baloch political activists by the Pakistani Military in recent months. According to verifiable reports from different human rights organizations, the Pakistani Military Intelligence and Inter Services Intelligence agencies picked dozens of political activists and took them to unknown destinations. They were tortured whilst under military detention. After some days their dead bodies were thrown over desolate places. The Asian Human Rights Commission in its report issued on 24th of this month has given the horrifying details of extrajudicial killings and other brutalities being perpetrated by the Pakistani army in Balochistan.

Whereabouts of thousands of the Baloch are still unknown. Pakistani govt. officials have accepted of more than 1000 missing person themselves last year and we genuinely believe that their lives are in grave danger. Abductions of students, doctors, teachers, journalists and human rights activists are going on daily basis in Balochistan.

The Chief Minister of Balochistan, the Governor of Balochistan, the Prime Minister of Pakistan and the President of Pakistan have admitted the worsening human rights situation in Balochistan and have shown their helplessness against Pakistani army and its notorious Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) and Military Intelligence (MI) agencies.

The Pakistani military establishment has created numerous religious terrorist organizations as proxy “Hit Squads” and with the help of these organizations consisting of dacoits and robbers and working with different nomenclatures is fully determined to physically eliminate the Baloch political and human rights activists. A large number of prominent Baloch social, intellectual and political figures have been targeted and eliminated by these hit squads.

Excellency,

Baloch are facing the cruellest state oppression in the contemporary history. The religious fundamentalist states of Pakistan and Iran have been reacting to the genuine Baloch demands for cultural, economic and political emancipation with the use of crude military prowess.

Kidnappings, torture, solitary confinement and extra judicial killings of the Baloch by state intelligence agencies are the usual ways adopted by the Pakistani and Iranian States. The situation for the Baloch is alarming.

The Baloch Human Rights Council (UK) requests your immediate intervention. We strongly request you to press the Pakistani State establishment to stop all atrocities against the Baloch political, social and human rights activists and civilians.

Your immediate intervention could save not only countless innocent lives but could also prevent the present situation from developing into a total genocide of the defenceless Baloch people.

Mr. Prime Minister,

Keeping in mind the extensive links of this country with the Pakistani State Establishment, we believe that the British government is well aware of the heinous crimes being committed by the Pakistani State establishment in Balochistan. The Baloch are facing a systematic genocide.

They need urgent help from the civilized and democratic world. We hope that the honorable Prime Minister may kindly take a personal interest in pushing for a thorough and independent international investigation into the cold-blooded murders of the Baloch nationalist leaders and other serious abuses of human rights and humanitarian laws by the Pakistani Army in Balochistan.

We believe that no individual or state should be above International Laws. Those who are responsible for grave violation of human rights must be held accountable. We demand that in order to bring justice to the Baloch people the Government of Great Britain should use its influence for the stationing of an international peacekeeping force in Balochistan to save a whole nation from being wiped out systematically.

Failing to do so is letting down a people who are being minced under the powerful jaws of the military establishment of a recognized rogue state.

We request that this petition be taken as an urgent humanitarian appeal.

Yours faithfully
Samad Baloch
General Secretary
Baloch Human Rights Council (UK)
London 26.11.2010

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About AHRC: The Asian Human Rights Commission is a regional non-governmental organisation monitoring and lobbying human rights issues in Asia. The Hong Kong-based group was founded in 1984.

ENDS

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