Baloch Nationalists Speak on Human Rights Violations in Balochistan, at the UNHRC

GENEVA, September 28, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

An event was held on September 26, 2016, during the ongoing session of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva, to highlight the human rights atrocities in Balochistan, especially the kill and dump policy of the Pakistan army. Among the prominent people who participated in this event, were prominent Baloch nationalists Brahumdagh Bugti and Mehran Marri, and Executive Director of the Balochistan House, Tarek Fatah.

In his speech on this occasion, Mehran Marri, Baloch Representative to the UNHRC and the European Union, stated that the people of Balochistan were facing human rights violations, as well as annihilation of their language, culture, history and heritage. He exhorted the Baloch people not to be silent to Pakistan's attempts to wipe them out, but to stand up for their rights.

In his remarks, Brahumdagh Bugti, President of the Baloch Republican Party, while referring to the continuing struggle of the Baloch nationalists since the illegal annexation of Balochistan by Pakistan in 1948, stated that the Baloch will continue to fight peacefully but if pushed to the corner, reserve the right to defend themselves. This, he said, was to ensure that the Baloch culture, customs, language etc. were not crushed under the tanks of the Pakistani oppressors. He also cautioned that Pakistan was attempting to sow seeds of distrust among the countries neighbouring Balochistan, by floating the idea that the Baloch nationalists were seeking a 'Greater Balochistan', comprising areas in Iran and Afghanistan. He clarified that this was not correct and the Baloch people only sought assistance from their neighbours in their struggle against Pakistani domination.

In his address, Tarek Fatah described Pakistan as the hub of international jihadi terrorism, and stated that in recent history, there were few examples of a country where the defacto ruling military and the deep state were geared to supporting, nurturing, breeding and exporting Islamic terror in the region and the rest of the world. In this context, he said that the case for the independence of Balochistan was not just because of the rights of the Baloch, and to halt the atrocities being committed by the Pakistan occupation military, but also in context of the
international war against the forces of Islamofascism. He added that the independence of Balochistan would mean the end of this threat to human civilization, as with a free Balochistan would come the end of Pakistan, and would lead to the establishment of a Muslim nation dedicated to liberal parliamentary secular democracy, a friend of its neighbours and the international community.

In a subsequent interview at the UNHRC, Member of the European Parliament (MEP) Fulvio Martusciello, stated that in view of the ongoing genocide in Balochistan, he and his fellow MEPs would like to push for a resolution in the EP seeking to blacklist the Punjabi-dominated Pak Army.