A prominent women Baloch rights campaigner was imprisoned in Pakistan on Saturday for holding a sit-in in southwest Balochistan, which resulted in the deaths of three protesters, according to authorities.
One of Pakistan’s most renowned human rights advocates, Mahrang Baloch, has long campaigned for the Baloch tribal group from the state of Balochistan, which claims that Islamabad has been the site of judicial abuse, detention, and deaths.
In the mineral-rich province that borders Afghanistan and Iran, the Pakistani government claims its forces are battling separatist militants who are attempting to intimidate state forces and foreigners.
A senior police official told AFP on condition of anonymity that he was not authorized to speak to the media that” she, along with 17 other protesters, including 10 men and seven women, has been arrested.”
” It is currently being determined what charges should be brought against them,” he continued.
The protesters demanded the release of members of their support group, who they claimed had been detained by security agencies, during a sit-in on Friday outside the University of Balochistan.
According to the Baloch Yakjehti Committee, a support organization led by Baloch, she and other protesters were the target of a “brutal pre-dawn crackdown by state security forces.”
According to a provincial government spokesman, both sides blamed one another for the conflict, which left at least three protestors dead.
Use no force;-” Cease to use force”
This comes after the province experienced a dramatic train siege this month that was blamed on separatists behind the assault on which half of the victims were killed.
One of the numerous separatist organizations that accuse outsiders of plundering the province’s natural resources, is the Baloch Liberation Army ( BLA ), which claimed responsibility for the assault.
The independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan ( HRCP ) pleaded in a statement that” the authorities must immediately cease using force against peaceful protestors and release those who have been arbitrarily detained.”
The state must stop using excessive and unlawful kinetic means, making way for a purposeful political solution, it added.
After being named among the 2024 TIME100 Next list of “rising leaders,” Baloch was prohibited from visiting the United States last year.
She began her activism when her father vanished in an alleged “enforced disappearance” at the age of 16 in 2009. His body was discovered two years later.
Women typically lead protests and advocate for the Baloch, who claim that their male counterparts have experienced the worst effects of a decades-long state crackdown.
