8 students, including Umer Satti, M.Ali, Ahtasham, Afridi BBA students in Preston university attacked Baloch students when they were having lunch at university’s cafe.

8 students, including Umer Satti, M.Ali, Ahtasham, Afridi BBA students in Preston uni versity attacked Baloch students when they were having lunch at university’s cafe. There is CCTV camera and that is quite a credible evidence as well.They started beating Baloch students for speaking in Balochi, with knucler duster and daggers, till they got unconscious. University administration did not came to rescue. Later administration turned against them and found to be protected those criminals.These students were brought to Pims and got 5 to 6 stitches each atleast. Acc to doctors injuries are quite serious and an obvious murder.

On this 2014 International Women’s Day I ask everyone to join me in celebrating the extensive accomplishments of the inspirational and influential women activists from the turbulent region of Balochistan.,

On this 2014 International Women’s Day I ask everyone to join me in celebrating the extensive accomplishments of the inspirational and influential women activists from the turbulent region of Balochistan. Since 2005, the Pakistan armed forces have been engaged in their 5th violent campaign of ethnic cleansing within the province. The violence in the Balochistan region continues to escalate with each passing day. During the past 12 years nearly 20,000 Indigenous Baloch civilians have been illegally abducted by State agencies. Most of the Baloch abductees have been subjected to severe acts of torture and many are extra-judicially executed. More than 1800 bullet-riddled and tortured remains of Abducted Baloch citizens have been recovered since 2005 in Balochistan.

Women like Voice for Baloch Missing Person’s General Secretary Farzana Majeed Baloch. Farzana Majeed Baloch was an accomplished student, holding a MSC in chemistry and a BA in Balochi. Five years ago, Farzana’s younger brother and Baloch Student organization leader Zakir Majeed Baloch was unlawfully abducted by Pakistani ISI agents in Mastung. Zakir Majeed Baloch was a 27 year old English student at the Lasbela University of Agriculture, Water and Marine Sciences. After his abduction in 2009 Farzana Majeed Baloch began a crusade for his safe release. She went before regional courts and supreme courts to petition for her brother’s release, yet was turned away. When the courts refused to help, Farzana Majeed took up peaceful protest. Several times she staged hunger strike demonstrations at the Islamabad supreme courts, but to no avail. After all avenues of legal action had been exhuased, Farzana Majeed Baloch joined the Voice for Baloch Missing Persons Long March for Justice.

Women like Farzana Majeed Baloch continue to inspire people around the world to demand basic human rights and civil liberty. Throughout the past five years, Farzana Majeed has overcome incredible adversity through her continued resilience and persistence. Despite threats to the Long March protestors, vehicular attacks and even Police interference, Farzana remained steadfast in her quest to demand accountability for her brother and the over 20,000 other victims of enforced disappearances in Balochistan.

Another well known Baloch activist is Baloch Republican Party Women’s Wing Organizer Banuk Horan Baloch. Banuk Horan founded the Woman’s Wing of BRP in 2012 and has quickly gained a great deal of support. Baloch Republican Party Women’s Wing now maintains chapters in Quetta, Mastung, Gwadar, Turbat, Karchi and Tump. Banuk Horan Baloch has become an influential and integral part of the liberation movement.

Banuk Horan Baloch has participated in countless demonstrations and protests against Pakistan’s relentless military attacks upon the citizens of Balochistan. In April 2013 target killers attempted to assassinate Banuk Horan Baloch. Unidentified Gunmen indiscriminately fired upon her family home. Although her home was damaged, Banuk Horan and her family were unharmed. Despite the violent attempt on her life, Banuk Horan Baloch continued her struggle to generate awareness of the severe human rights abuses being perpetrated by the Pakistani Army in Balochistan. In addition to organizing and holding protests, Banuk Horan continues to appeal to international human rights organizations.

Banuk Horan Baloch, Farzana Majeed Baloch, Banuk Karema Baloch, Banuk Zarina Marri, and so many other Baloch Women Activists stand bravely in opposition to a tyrannical occupational state in Balochistan. Through their brave deeds and continued efforts, the heroic Women of Balochistan stand as brilliant examples of the greatness one can achieve even amidst oppression and adversity.

http://balochwarna.com/features/articles.123/International-Women-Day-and-women-of-Balochistan.html#.Uxu43p23tX4.facebook

فرزانہ مجید اور اسلام آباد کے فائیو اسٹار صحافی ۔۔۔۔ حبیب بلوچ

اس کی آواز میں بلا کا اعتماد تھا، وہ ہر لفظ سوچ سمجھ کر ادا کررہی تھی، وہ جب اپنا جملہ مکمل کرکے تھوڑا سا وقفہ لیتی تو پس منظر میں خاموشی چھا جاتی، اس نے ایک بار جب بولنا شروع کیا تو اپنی بات مکمل کرکے ہی دم لی۔اس کی باتوں میں ناراضگی ضرور تھی مگر وہ کسی ہمدردی کی طلب گار نہ تھی، وہ کہہ رہی تھی کہ اسے اپنا حق چاہیے،اپنے بھائی سمیت تمام لاپتہ افراد کی رہائی یا عدالتوں کے سامنے پیشی، ملکی حکمرانوں سے، قانون نافذ کرنے والے اداروں سے، سپریم کورٹ سے۔ اگرملک میں ہر دروازہ کھٹکھٹانے کے باوجود بھی پچھلے پانچ سالوں میں اسے کہیں سے انصاف نہ ملا تو اقوام متحدہ اور عالمی برادری سے رجوع کرنا اس کا حق ہے۔

اسلام آباد کے نیشنل پریس کلب کے باہر صحافیوں کی جانب سے پوچھے جانے والے سوالات کے جواب میں اس نے الٹا صحافیوں پر سوالات کی بوچھاڑ کردی، اس کی جانب سے اٹھایا جانے والا ہر سوال با وزن اور حقائق پر مبنی تھا۔وہ جب صحافیوں سے پوچھ رہی تھی کہ پانچ سال پہلے انہوں نے کبھی ماما قدیر یا فرزانہ مجید کا نام سنا تھا تو صحافی حضرات ایک دوسرے کی جانب حیرت سے دیکھتے رہے،

صحافیوں سے مخاطب ہونے سے پہلے فرزانہ مجید کافی دیر تک ان کے سوالات سنتی رہی، خاموش رہی، ان کے چہروں کے تاثرات اور سوالات کی نوعیت پر غور کرتی رہی، جب سوالات بے محل، غیر ضروری ، طنزیہ اور تضحیک آمیز ہونے لگیں تو وہ بول پڑی۔وہ کہہ رہی تھی کہ بلوچستان والے ناخواندہ اور گونگے نہیں ہیں،وہ اپنے حق کے لیے نہ صرف آواز اٹھا سکتے ہیں بلکہ اس کے لیے جدوجہد بھی کرسکتے ہیں۔ انہیں اپنے مسائل کو اجاگر کرنا آتا ہے اور وہ پر امن احتجاج کرنا بھی جانتے ہیں۔ مخالفین کو انہیں سننے اور برداشت کرنے کا حوصلہ پیدا کرنا ہوگا۔ بایو کیمسٹری میں ایم ایس سی اور بلوچی ادب میں ایم اے کرنے والی فرزانہ مجید وائس فار بلوچ مسنگ پرسنز کی جنرل سیکریٹری اور ایم اے انگریزی کے طالب علم اور لاپتہ طالب علم رہنما ء ذاکر مجید کی بڑی بہن اور ماما قدیر کی قیادت میں لانگ مارچ کرنے والے قافلے کا ایک اہم کردار ہیں۔
ہم صحافی حضرات بھی ہر فن مولا اور عجیب مخلوق ہوتے ہیں۔یہ سچ ہے کہ بعض صحافی دوست پریس کانفرنسوں میں مزے لینے اور ٹائم پاس کرنے جاتے ہیں۔بعض مرتبہ ان کا مقصد صرف سامنے والے کو چھیڑنا، اس کا مذاق اڑانا یا جملے کسنا ہوتا ہے، ایسے حضرات لکھنے لکھانے کی بجائے صرف سوال کرنے یا مفتا اڑانے پہنچ جاتے ہیں، کبھی خود پوچھ لیتے ہیں تو کبھی کسی اور کی جانب سے پرچہ پڑھ کر پوچھ ڈالتے ہیں،پریس کانفرنس کے بعد ایک دوسرے سے مانگ تانگ کر خبر بنالیتے ہیں۔

اسلام آباد کی سول اور ملٹری اشرافیہ اور سیاستدانوں کے ساتھ ساتھ یہاں کی صحافتی برادری کے بارے میں یہ مشہور ہے کہ وہ بھی فائیو اسٹار اور ایلیٹ کلاس سے تعلق رکھتی ہے۔انہیں بھی بلوچستان کے بارے میں اتنا ہی پتا ہے جتنا انہیں بریف کیا جاتا ہے۔بیشتر ساتھی کوئٹہ ، سوئی اور گوادر کے علاوہ شاید ہی کسی اور علاقے سے واقف ہوں۔لسبیلہ میں واقع نانی مندر کے میلے کی کوریج ہو یا تفتان بارڈر پر ایران سے بے دخل کیے جانے والے پاکستانیوں کی آمد کا واقعہ کوئٹہ کے نامہ نگار کو فون کرکے ڈی ایس این جی سمیت فوری طور پرپیپر کے لیے پہنچنے کو کہا جاتا ہے۔
لاپتہ افراد کی بازیابی کے لیے لانگ مارچ کرنے والے قافلے سے جب اسلام آباد کے نیشنل پریس کلب میں پریس کانفرنس کے انعقاد سے معذرت کی گئی تو ماما قدیر اور ان کی ٹیم نے کلب کے سامنے دھرنا دے کر پریس کانفرنس کرڈالی۔
صحافی برادری کے بارے میں مشہور ہے کہ وہ مظلوموں کا ساتھ دیتے ہیں مگر اسلام آباد کے نیشنل پریس کلب کے سامنے اس دن ایسا کوئی مظاہرہ دیکھنے کو نہیں ملا، لانگ مارچ میں شریک خواتین اور بچوں کو بھی نہیں بخشا گیا، پنڈی اور آبپارہ کے اشاروں پر انہیں دہشت گردوں کا ساتھی، بی ایل اے والوں کا ہمدرد اور نہ جانے کن کن الزامات سے نوازا گیا، وہ تو بھلا ہو حامد میر کا کہ جس نے اپنے پروگرام کیپیٹل ٹاک میں لانگ مارچ کے شرکاء کو بلا کر ان کا موقف اہل اسلام آباد و پنجاب سمیت ملک بھرکے سامنے لانے کا اہتما م کیا۔

Baloch to raise the issue of missing persons, mass graves at UNHRC.

Long march raises the issue of missing persons in Balochistan.

Baluch Protesters March Across Pakistan ,

Farzana Majeed of Voice of Baloch Missing Persons: “Give answers to these questions! It is for the answers to these questions that we have come out.”

Recently, activists from Balochistan, Pakistan, which is in the south of the country and shares a border with Iran and Afghanistan, set out on foot for a 2,000km march from Quetta to Islamabad. This Long March, noted in the Pakistani press as the country’s first-ever protest march, was organized by Voice of Baloch Missing Persons in an effort to raise national and international awareness of the plight of Baloch people in Pakistan, to seek answers from the government regarding the state’s ongoing repression of Baloch people, and to obtain justice for the Baloch disappeared and killed, which number in the thousands.

The core group of marchers, numbering about 2 dozen – including 12 women, 7 men, and 3 children – were greeted along their journey by supporters in numerous towns along the way. But they also faced indifference and hostility, and when they reached Islamabad and presented themselves at the National Press Club, they faced journalists who sought not to adhere to the standards of their profession, but rather to provoke, ridicule, and malign both those who had marched so far for a just cause, and Baloch people in general.

Angered by their attitude, one of the marchers, Banuk Farzana Majeed (1), provided the journalists in Islamabad with a powerfully articulated response to their derision. Her response is captured on video, and translated to English, below. Mission Free Iran supports the just demands of Farzana Majeed and the Voice of Baloch Missing Persons for the immediate and unconditional release of all political prisoners.

“My name is Farzana Majeed Baloch, and I am the sister of Baloch student leader Zakir Majeed Baloch, who was abducted on 8th June 2009 by Pakistani secret services agencies from Karimabad in Mastung. To date there is no news about him. I am that sister who, when her brother was abducted on 8th June 2009, started to protest from 9th June 2009. During this protest she [referring to herself] did hunger strikes, press conferences, went to Karachi Press Club, Quetta Press Club. I have come to Islamabad three times and sat here for hunger strike. And your Supreme Court, the Supreme Court of Pakistan – supposedly the institution of Justice – here to it I have come for hearings in Islamabad three times. I have gone to it many times in Quetta as well, but I got Justice from nowhere. Why don’t you ask these questions (2) of them?

The five years of pain we have spent aren’t ordinary years. All that you do is write “five” and “years.” But it isn’t as simple as that; these five years, these painful five years, we have spent on roads and streets [seeking justice]. Aren’t we the mothers and sisters of someone? Don’t we have needs? Don’t we have feelings? Don’t our mothers wait for their beloved children?

The forces that you speak of and claim are our defenders and protectors (3) in Balochistan – are they in fact our protectors? Or are they our murderers? This is also a question that you have to answer. The protector is the one who protects people. Not the one who forcibly takes people away in vehicles and later throws their mutilated bodies [on the roadsides] (4). Aren’t these questions that demand answers? Give answers to these questions. It is for the answers to these questions that we have come out. Seeking answers to these painful questions, we have walked 3000 kilometers.

We aren’t psychotic; we aren’t insane girls who wander needlessly on the roads. We have brought our pain and sorrow from our homes; our mothers are anxiously waiting for their children who you have disappeared years before, and they have become psychologically disturbed. Why don’t you answer these questions?

Girls as young as these [pointing to female journalists] and even younger have been widowed there. Young women have received the mutilated bodies of their brothers. Old women have carried the mutilated bodies of their beloved sons. Mama Qadeer (5) himself carried the mutilated body of his son; this young boy [referring to Mama Qadeer’s grandson, Beauragh] has seen his father’s mutilated body. Give answers to these questions. Why do you keep harping on questions about the Balochistan Liberation Army, maps, Haiyr Biyar, Brahamdagh, Khair Bakhsh (6), why do you keep asking us these questions? Moreover they (our leaders) will certainly support us – why shouldn’t they support us? We are their children. If you kill us, will they not ask you? How could they not raise the matter in Geneva while you keep on killing us young Baloch?

What sort of ridiculous questions do you ask us? We aren’t deranged and we aren’t making a drama. It is you who are carrying out a charade and trying to befool and trick Baloch mothers and sisters. Now do you comprehend and understand what it is all about? We need answers to these questions. Don’t you people have mothers and sisters? Did any one of you see me on the roads five years back? Did you then know who Farzana Majeed was? Did you know him [pointing to Ali Haider (7)]? Did Mama Qadeer appeal to NATO five years back? You sit here and try to ridicule us and malign us – is this the way of civilized?

Now you answer my questions. Go to your government and your Nawaz Sharif (8) and tell them that Farzana Majeed demands to know why she has not gotten justice in five years. Ask Asif Ali Zardari (9), why didn’t I get justice in these five years? I need answers to these questions and it is for this for reason I am going to the United Nations. I am going to the UN because no institution here is listening to our grievances, so you (the UN) can ask them why our grievances aren’t being heard.

Don’t I know how to speak and write? Don’t I know how to conduct myself? So why I am not heard here? These are my questions and it is the answer to these questions that I demand of the Pakistani state. And regarding my brother [Zakir Majeed] who, if he has committed a crime, then the allegations that the government has against him should be presented in Supreme Court or the High Court. Punish him if he is proved guilty, and if then Farzana Majeed says something, then you have the right to protest.

Now do you understand? It is these things that we want to ask of the Pakistani state. You all refuse to see these demands of ours. The only thing you see is, why we are we staging hunger strikes, why are we going to the UN, why we don’t support the federation and why we don’t go to the Parliament which has never done anything for us?”

Translation by Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur
Minor edits and footnotes added by Maria Rohaly

FOOTNOTES:

(1) Farzana Majeed Baloch serves as Secretary General of the organization Voice of Baloch Missing Persons. Her brother, Baloch student leader Zakir Majeed Baloch, was abducted on 8th June 2009 by Pakistani secret services agencies from Karimabad in Mastung.

(2) Referring to the insulting and derogatory questions from the Pakistani journalists.

(3) Referring to the journalists’ assertion that the Pakistani army is the protector of people in Balochistan.

(4) Referring to the common practice of “kill and dump,” whereby Baloch people are abducted from the street and later found dead, usually mutilated and shot, by the roadside.

(5) Mama Qadeer (Abdul Qadeer Baloch), age 72, is the vice-chairman of the organization Voice of Baloch Missing Persons. He organized and led the historic Long March from Quetta to Islamabad. The mutilated body of his son, Jalil Reki, was recovered from Mand, District Kech region, after he was abducted, tortured and executed in custody by Pakistani state security forces.

(6) Haiyr Biyar, Brahamdagh, and Khair Bakhsh are the names of Baloch people leading various organizations.

(7) Ali Haider Baloch, age 11, joined the long march with his elder sister Saba. His father Ramzan Baloch was abducted in front of Ali’s eyes.

(8) Nawaz Sharif is the current Prime Minister of Pakistan.

(9) Asif Ali Zardari is a Pakistani politician and current co-chairman of Pakistan Peoples’ Party.

http://missionfreeiran.org/2014/03/05/farzana-majeed-and-the-voice-of-baloch-missing-person/