Does the UDHR apply to the people of Balochistan?

Articles :

By Faiz M Baluch


As the world marks International Human Rights Day ‘10 December’ Pakistan and Iran should be urged to respect the Human Rights of the Baloch people and end the illegal occupation of Balochistan.

International Human Rights Day is observed by the international community every year on December 10 to commemorate the day in 1948 when the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The declaration has become a universal standard for defending and promoting human rights. The first sentence of the declaration reads: "The recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world." The declaration remains one of the most important documents ever created. It represented the first clear formal statement of the fundamental rights to which all humans are entitled. Guinness World Records describes it as the world's ''Most Translated Document''.

Does this declaration protect the rights of occupied Nations or stateless Nations?

The oppressed and occupied Nations continue to suffer at the hands of member states of the United Nations. Balochistan is also one such stateless Nations that has long been attacked, invaded and divided occupying nations that are signatories or members of the UN human rights council.

Due to the lack of international media coverage and international recognition, the Balochistan conflict is known as the “Forgotten Conflict”. The Baloch people’s struggle for independence, and against the illegal occupation of their sovereign state, continues till this day. Balochistan was first occupied and divided by the British in 1839. Later, two artificial British-drawn borders, the Goldsmith Line and the Durand Line, sliced Balochistan into three pieces. Northern Balochistan and Western Balochistan were given to Persia and Afghanistan respectively, and Eastern Balochistan (Pakistan-occupied Balochistan) remained independent and maintained treaty relations with the British. Balochistan was never a part of British India, Persia or any other empire or countries.

In 1947 when the British concluded that they could not rule over a united India, they came up with the idea of building a separate state for Muslims. The “Two Nation Theory” was proposed to serve this purpose, and India was subsequently divided in the name of religion. A new state was carved out of India and named Pakistan, meaning the land of pure, though many may argue that its purity is doubtful. Muslims scholars, except Pakistanis, even have reservations over the name of Pakistan – they believe how a land can be called pure where at types of sins and impure actions are taking place.

Before the partition of India and the withdrawal of the British from subcontinent, the Baloch were given three options: (1) join India, (2) join the upcoming Pakistan or (3) remain independent. The Baloch, of course, chose to maintain their sovereign status and independence.

On 11 August 1947 the British, India and the upcoming administration of Pakistan declared Balochistan’s independence. On 13 August 1947 India was granted independence and on 14 August 1947 Pakistan was carved out of India and declared a country. On 15 August 1947 the ruler of Balochistan, ‘Ahmad Yaar Khan’ officially proclaimed independence and formed the two houses of Baloch parliament - the House of Commons and The House of Lords.

Balochistan’s independence, however, was short-lived as new-born Jihadist state of Pakistan, within 9 months of coming into existence, occupied Balochistan; the rationaleu used to justify this occupation was the idea of shared religion. The so-called founder of Pakistan, Mr. Jinnah, also known as Mohammad Ali Jinnah by Pakistanis, had invited the ruler of Balochistan to join Pakistan. On 16 December 1947 the Khan called a joint meeting of the houses and put the matter before them. The Balochistan parliament overwhelmingly rejected the idea of joining Pakistan and opted to remain independent.

On 27 March 1948 the Pakistani army invaded Balochistan and held the Khan and his family members as hostage in their own palace. That same year, while the Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaimed a people’s right to “The recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,” the independent state of Balochistan was occupied at gunpoint--a sheer violation of the Baloch people’s Human Rights and their right to freedom and justice.

In late 1948, the Baloch people started their first guerrilla war against the illegal occupation of their motherland. In fact, it was the younger brother of the ruler of Balochistan, Prince Abdul Karim Khan Baloch, who led the struggle against occupying forces. The struggle to regain Baloch sovereignty has erupted intermittently throughout the years and continues till this day. The Baloch peoples’ only desire and demand is their right to independence and the Baloch are determined to continue their struggle until such time that Balochistan is free once again. After the initial freedom movement in 1948, Pakistan has come into open conflict with the Baloch on four occasions: 1958, 1962-63, 1973-77 and the current ongoing conflict which started in early 2000.

Hundreds of thousands of Baloch have been killed since the occupation in 1948 and many hundreds have been made homeless, now living in neighbouring Pakistan and Afghanistan under appalling conditions. International aid agencies have been denied access by Pakistani authorities to help the displaced people of Balochistan. Unfortunately, the UN seems unconcerned by Pakistan’s actions towards the Baloch, and uninterested in helping the Baloch people.

It was during this most recent conflict that many top Baloch leaders were murdered, along with thousands of innocent Baloch women, children and elderly. Among the top Baloch leaders assassinated during Musharraf’s dictatorial regime and the current so-called elected PPP government, were Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti, Mir Balaach Marri, Dr. Khalid Baloch, Ghulam Mohammad Baloch, Lala Munir Baloch, Sher Mohammad Baloch, Rasool Bux Mengal Baloch, professor Saba Dashtyari, Bibi Mehtab Raisani Baloch and 14 years old Waheed Baloch and Majeed Zehri Baloch to name a few.

At present over 14000 Baloch political activists, students, and ordinary Baloch are languishing in secret torture cells of Pakistan. The families of abducted Baloch say that they have not been told about the situations of their loved ones. None of the forced-disappeared Balochs have been presented in any court, or allowed any legal representation. More than 500 people among the aforementioned number have been killed under custody by Pakistan military, FC and other security agencies. Similar number of Baloch activists including teachers, professors, students, lawyers, poets and other well-educated members of Baloch society have been target killed by Pakistan’s military and their civilian death squads.

Even today as I write this article, a military offensives, enforced-disappearances and extrajudicial killing are continuing in Balochistan and people are being disappeared, target killed and their houses being raided on regular basis. According to latest information, the Pakistani military has been carrying out military offensives in Kohistan Marri, Dera Bugti, Panjgur, Turbat and several other regions across Balochistan.

I am dismayed at the silence of the international community regarding the atrocities committed in Balochistan by Iranian and Pakistani security forces. Baloch are killed and executed under sham pretexts and labelled as drug dealers or enemies of GOD by Iran and outlaws or miscreants by Pakistan. Yet, USA, United Kingdom, the EU and other democratic powers take no action against Pakistan and Iran. The Baloch need their moral support and it is the ethical responsibility of these ‘champions’ of Human Rights and democracy to raise their voices against the human rights violations in Balochistan.

Pakistan is deceiving the international community, especially the West, claiming to help fight the “War on Terror”, while committing heinous crimes against the people of Balochistan. Baloch political parties have said time and again that the weapons and other resources Pakistan receives to fight the Taliban are instead being used against the secular Baloch people. The international War on Terror is more like a give and take business, it’s being used as “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours”.

The Baloch and other oppressed Nations are the invisible victims of the War on Terror. The member states of United Nations are suppressing the genuine struggle of occupied Nations whereas the UN is reluctant to take action against these states. The decision of United Nations to give Palestine the status of non-member observer state should commended but it high time that stateless Nations like the Baloch, the Tamils, the Kurds and others are given fair representation in the UN to make their voices heard across the globe. The UN, instead of covering up the crimes of its member states, must take actions against them. If solutions lead to the dismemberment of such states, the UN should not hesitate to expel or suspend them until such time they improve their human rights record.

On this International day of Human Rights the Baloch appeal the UN and other International Human Rights Organisations to pressure Pakistan and Iran to end human rights violations in Balochistan. Pakistan and Iran must be urged to respect the human rights of the Baloch people. The articles of UDHR apply to the Baloch, as much as any other oppressed Nation. If the world wants to honour the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it must recognise the oppressed nations struggle for their national liberation.

The Baloch appeal to the honourable UN secretary General Mr. Ban Ki Moon and UN human rights chief Navi Pillay to recognise Balochistan as an occupied territory under the Geneva Convention and use their good offices to emphasise to world leaders to take notice of gross human rights violations committed by the fascist regimes of Iran and Pakistan against the Baloch people.

Faiz M Baluch is student of journalism at Metropolitan University in London and a human rights activist. He tweets at, twitter.com/FaizMBaluch and can be contacted at FMBaluch@gmail.com

http://balochwarna.com/features/articles.59/Does-the-UDHR-apply-to-the-people-of-Balochistan-.html#.UMXMa--cipA.facebook 

VBMP Hunger Protest Camp In Front of Karachi Press Club. 10-Dec-2012

Sindhi Actor Asad Qureshi Baloch Missing Person Camp karachi,sindh.

Western media and the Brotherhood: secrets behind the love affair

Why does the Western media refuse to see the epochal resurgence of Egypt's revolutionary spirit? Because love is blind

Hani Shukrallah , Monday 10 Dec 2012  

On Friday morning, and as Egypt’s resurgent revolution was preparing to lock horns yet again with forces bent on its destruction, I received (an exceedingly) long distance call from an Australian broadcast journalist. They wanted a phone interview with me on the confrontation between “the Muslim Brotherhood and the pro-Mubarak forces,” explained the female voice on the other side of the line. Utterly baffled by the bizarre question, it took me a while to reply. Finally, with admittedly a nasty chuckle, I said it seemed that by the time Egypt’s news gets half way across half the globe to reach down under, it tends to be rather distorted.

My Australian colleague took my unpleasantness in stride, and genially asked if they could phone me a little later for the interview. Yet, and despite my having agreed reluctantly to the interview, I was so disgusted with what I felt was the Western media’s almost obdurate unwillingness to understand, or even see what was going on in our country, I decided not to take it after all. Repeated rings of my mobile phone went unanswered.

Distance, in fact, had nothing to do with it. Egypt was once again making world history; millions of Egyptians across the country were engaged in open popular revolt against the rule of the Muslim Brotherhood, almost literally the mother of all modern political Islamist movements, not least the dread Al-Qaeda, which had occupied the centre stage of global politics – and Western media attention – for close on three decades.

So remarkable was this new wave of the Egyptian revolution, its reach extended from the heartland of Brotherhood-support in Upper Egypt to Mediterranean Alexandria, which in turn had appeared to have thoroughly renounced its rich cosmopolitan heritage to become the distasteful playground of grim Talbian-like Salafists.

It was, moreover, the first ever popular uprising against a ruling Islamist movement, much wider in scope, intensity and social composition than any of the revolts we’d seen hitherto against the Ayatollahs’ rule in Iran.

And yet, the Western media seemed unmoved and uninterested. “They have mouths, but cannot speak, eyes, but they cannot see.”

So pronounced has been the Western media’s neglect and disinclination to even see with a bare minimum of clarity the epochal transformation taking place in Egypt that over the past week my Facebook page has been regaled with postings of: PETITION: The Egyptian Revolution 2.0 Needs International Coverage.

Though the petition was strongly reflective of the above, I did not sign it – for two reasons. As a journalist I am constitutionally averse to any kind of pressure on media professionals, whether it takes the shape of government censorship, attacks by fascist hooligans of the sort we’ve been witnessing Brotherhood and Salafist thugs making on Cairo’s Media City, or even the benign form of a Facebook petition.

Secondly, it’s futile. You have neither the clout, power of intimidation, blackmail nor means of tangible punishment that the pro-Israel lobby has been deploying most effectively against the Western media for decades (and which, it so happens, our own MB has been aping on a considerably more local scale through its e-militias, truncheon-wielding militias, no less than its take-over bid of the state owned media, and its “constitutional” bid to muzzle all media.)

Nor should you. And pleading is embarrassing, let alone ineffectual.

Why then this obdurate blindness that seems suddenly to have struck the Western media vis-à-vis Egypt?  

I would suggest two basic reasons, one deep-seated, almost visceral, while the other is conscious, interest-bound and utilitarian.

The default setting of the Western media’s perspective on Egypt, as on Muslim-majority nations in general, is derivative – a function of “Western Man’s” very sense of identity. The great Edward Said has shown just how fundamental has been the “Orient”, particularly the Muslim “Orient”, to the formation of the identity of modern Europe, later redefined as “The West”.

And while the “West” may not particularly love Islam and Muslims, it simply adores their “difference”, just as a miserably married couple will revel in the misfortune of their divorced neighbours. It makes them feel good about themselves. It was thus that modern Europe denied the great Muslim/Arab tradition of rationalism and humanism, even as it appropriated it.

Al-Farabi (stylized, Alpharabius),  Ibn Rushd  (Averroes), Ibn Sina (Avicenna) had not given this tradition over to a Europe just emerging from its “Dark Ages”, but were mere postmen of history, delivering the message from Europe’s ostensible infancy in Ancient Greek. And thus too, the West’s “rationalism” came to be contrasted with the Muslim Orient’s “mysticism” and supposedly unquestioning adherence to religious dogma, the West’s attachment to freedom versus the Muslim attachment to despotism, individualism versus tribalism, etc.

During the past thirty years or so, and in conjunction with the rise of political Islam, such Orientalist nonsense was revived, dusted-off, polished and updated with extraordinary zeal. Not surprisingly, the Islamists willingly and enthusiastically jumped on the bandwagon. Practically overnight, the myth of fundamentally Islamic peoples who had been ruled by “Westernised elites” and were now coming into their own, became the conventional wisdom permeating all discourse on Muslim-majority,  particularly Arab nations.

Arch-Zionist and one time British spook, Bernard Louis would tell us such things as: “To the modern Western observer,” Islamic behviour in the modern world may appear anomalous, anachronistic and absurd, but he would hasten to add, “it is neither anachronistic nor absurd in relation to Islam.” By 1990, well before the 9/ 11 atrocity, Louis would take his bizarre-Muslims theory a little bit further, giving us the Clash, “the perhaps irrational but surely historical reaction of an ancient rival against our Judeo-Christian heritage.” Samuel Huntington would later “develop” it into one of the most ridiculous pieces of political theory ever (badly)-written, “The Clash of Civilization”, first in essay, then in book form.

But clash, dialogue or love-fest, the real point is the dissimilarity. In contrast to the rest of the world, and specifically to the “West”, the behavior of Muslims, be it political, social, or cultural can only be understood “in relation to Islam”, and this an Islam divested of the greatest and most enlightened of its traditions, an Islam defined and delimited by modern day Islamists, conservative, literalist and regressive. Not only was the great tradition of Islamic rationalism to be denied, but every other feature of the richness and diversity of our inherited and contemporary culture. Everything for a Thousand and One Nights to Om Kalthoum would be thrown by the way side.

Mubarak, no less than Islamist forces in Egypt and outside were happy to subscribe to variations of such a reductive perspective. For the sitting dictator, it was proof positive that his vicious police state was the only bulwark standing between the world and an Islamist flood sweeping the country, beloved Israel, the Greater Middle East, crossing over into the European heartland, and exploding a nuclear device in some major American city.

For the dictators in waiting, it was proof positive that they were “the authentic” representatives of an overwhelmingly “authentic” population, (“90% of the people,” to quote Mr Morsi, who won the presidential election by a bare 51% of the vote) – all they need do is convince the “West” that, in power, they would make nice with Israel, keep the Greater Middle East safe for the World Bank, IMF and multi-national corporations, and that their often rabid civilization clashing was really confined to domestic “others”, including liberal ninnies, commie agitators, licentious riff-raff such as artists, writers and journalists, and, of course, local Christians, Shiites and Bahaais.

The Arab Spring, especially the Egyptian revolution, came to unseat the all pervasive, pernicious paradigm. And for a brief period the Western media seemed happy to discover that for Arabs and Muslims too, there was “something in the soul that cries out of freedom,” as Obama was to quote Martin Luther King Jr. in his salute to the Egyptian revolution on 12 February 2011.

Yet, even during those glorious 18 days of Jan-Feb of that year, I would constantly get Western journalists querying me about “the crucial” or “decisive” part Islamists, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood, were playing in the revolution. Where they got such certitude I was at a loss to understand, seeing that there were millions on the streets, that you’d be hard pressed to find a single sign or chant in Cairo’s Tahrir or anywhere else in the country calling for the application of Sharia’a or “governance by what God has ordained,” that the revolutionary banner of: Bread, Freedom, Social Justice, had not an ounce of Islamism in it, that Christians and Muslims, women and men, fought together shoulder to shoulder, and that egalitarianism among all Egyptians had been the overriding ethic of the Egyptian revolution.

All too soon, the readiness of the Brotherhood and its Salafist allies coupled to the unpreparedness of the revolutionaries (due to 30 years of the eradication of politics under Mubarak) seemed to bear the deep-seated bias out. The extremely nuanced and complex reality of post revolutionary Egypt would be made to disappear, and the Western media’s coverage of the emergent political landscape in the country would regress into – what I’ve come to call – infantile Orientalism.

Deep-seated bias is only one part of the explanation, however. The second secret to the love affair is much more down to earth, essentially a function of realpolitik. For the US-led Western alliance, the Muslim Brotherhood in power in Egypt proved to be the answer to a prayer.

Notwithstanding all the rhetoric about the liberation of “Islamic Palestine”, Egypt’s new rulers would swear themselves blue in the face that they would uphold the commitment to the peace treaty with Israel, collaborate with the “hated enemy” in fighting terrorists in Sinai, bring in American troops and sophisticated spying equipment into the troubled peninsula’s demilitarized Area C, all the while maintaining “strategic ties” with Washington.

It would take the US/Egypt brokered truce in Gaza, however, to have Western media and pundits drooling over Mr Morsi and his up-and-coming Muslim Brotherhood run and controlled regime. All of a sudden, they discovered that not only was the MB president as compliant as his predecessor on “Israeli security”, but that he was proving a much more effective partner in this respect.

Suddenly, the realization hit home: Here was a democratically elected president (albeit narrowly), backed by “authentic” Islamist Muslims, not only in Egypt but throughout the Greater Middle East, able not only to intimidate and pressure Hamas into “reasonableness”, as Mubarak’s Omar Suleiman was known to do, but to do so in his capacity as Big Brother to the errant Palestinian branch of his movement. A unique and previously unexpected prize of this order was simply too precious to squander, even for the sake of such niceties as basic liberties and human rights.

So precious indeed, that one Israeli political writer suggested only last week that Netanyahu’s Israel might be in the process of making a strategic shift in its attitude to Hamas. Translated from the Hebrew by Media-Clips-Isr, Alex Fishman, writing in Ye​dioth Aharonot, suggests that under Netanyahu’s leadership Israel was in the process of changing its policy on the Gaza Strip, and that “Instead of toppling Hamas, it wants to give the Hamas regime power so that it will ensure quiet and to push it toward the Sunni, anti-Iranian coalition of Egypt, Qatar and Turkey.” Far-fetched, you might say. Possibly, I admit I haven’t been following Israeli politics as I should, what with domestic Egyptian developments overwhelming time and thought. Yet, very indicative, to say the least.

Rehabilitating Hamas with a view to “safeguarding Israeli security”, as defined by Netanyhau, no less than setting up a regional Sunni coalition against Iran are, it goes without saying, top agenda items in US/European policy in the Middle East.

But there is a more compelling reason for the Western alliance and its media’s love affair with Egypt’s Brotherhood – one of even greater strategic import. For some time now, the US and its allies had come to realize that the rickety, aged and corruption-ridden police states in the region, however servile, were very poor guardians of their vital interests in the region. The Arab Spring seemed to have given rise to a new and ostensibly much more solid foundation on which to anchor these interests. And as predicted by nearly everyone for years, some form of political Islam seemed the only viable alternative at hand.

 In Egypt, by far the biggest Arab state and home to Al-Azhar, the very fount-head of Sunni Islam, the Mother of all Islamist movements, the Muslim Brotherhood, had come to power and was ready and able to be the sort of loyal friend and guardian of “vital” Western interests as its predecessors had been, and to do so in a considerably more “legitimate” and effective manner.

 Embroiled for the past decade in a seemingly endless and harrowing battle against “terrorism”, specifically against Islamist radicalism, and with Europe increasingly phobic about the “demographic nightmare” of the Muslim “enemy within”, the US and its allies now had a model of the kind of Islamism they could have only dreamed of. By its very existence, such an Egyptian model was bound to undercut the dread radicals and ameliorate the “Islamist threat”, all the way from the heart of Paris to the Qaeda infested hills of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

This veritable treasure was as valuable to hold onto as its opposite, the collapse of such a model, was to be dreaded. Indubitably, such failure would provide a powerful boost to Islamist radicals everywhere, a further argument that Jihad rather than a “Western, Secularist-imported democracy” is the only way forward.

The love affair is thus explained, and as the popular saying goes “Love is blind.”

And yet, here at home, the souls of millions of Egyptians continue to cry out for freedom, come what may.

http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/60191.aspx

Doctors targeted in Balochistan.

Seminar on International Human Rights Day Thousands of Balochs are in Extrajudicial custody of Pakistani Intelligence Agencies.

Seminar on International Human Rights Day Thousands of Balochs are in Extrajudicial custody of Pakistani Intelligence Agencies.adressed Nasrullah Baloch , Mama Qadeer Baloch ,Frzana Majeed, Bramsh Baloch,Mohammad Haneef (BBC journalist )

A well known journalist of BBC, Mohammad Haneef in seminar of Voice For Baloch Missing Persons (VBMP) at Karachi press club ,regarding international human rights day.

AN ICONIC HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDER OF BALOCHISTAN: Mama Qadeer Baloch addressing in seminar of Voice For Baloch Missing Persons at Karachi press club regarding international human rights day

 

BNM - London protest front of House of Parliament regarding international human rights day

 

 

protest in front of Parliament House London about the Human Rights Violations in Balochistan.

Central Committee member of Baloch National Movement, Hammal Hayder Baloch, speaking at a protest in front of Parliament House London about the Human Rights Violations in Balochistan.