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PAKISTAN: More than 400 activists arrested within 72 hours prior to President's visit to Balochistan

November 30, 2006

[NOTICE: The AHRC have developed a new automatic letter-sending system using the "button" below. However, in this appeal, we could not include e-mail addresses of many of the Pakistan authorities. We encourage you to send your appeal letters via fax or post to those people. Fax numbers and postal addresses of the Pakistan authorities are attached below with this appeal. Thank you.]

URGENT APPEAL GENERAL URGENT APPEAL GENERAL URGENT APPEAL GENERAL
 
ASIAN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION – URGENT APPEALS PROGRAMME

Urgent Appeal

30 November 2006
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UA-386-2006: PAKISTAN: More than 400 activists arrested within 72 hours prior to President's visit to Balochistan

PAKISTAN: Violation of the freedom of assembly; persecution of political and human rights activists; arbitrary arrest and detention; abuse of rights in the pretext of maintaining public order; un-rule of law
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Dear friends,

The Asian Human Rights Commission has received information that the Pakistani government has arrested more than 400 political and human rights activists within 72 hours from the night of 27 November 2006 to stop the planned protest during President Musharraff's two day visit to Balochistan province from 30 November 2006. We were also informed that the government has imposed the maintenance of Public Order Ordinance throughout the province and also arrested the former chief minister of Balochistan. This is clear violation of freedom of assembly and expression of people in Balochistan and we call for your urgent intervention into this matter. 

CASE DETILAS: 

Balochistan National Party (BNP) has planed to organize a protest called "Long March" from 30 November 2006 on the same day when President Musharaff will begin his two days visit to Balochistan province. The protest aims at raising voice against the ongoing military operations, the establishment of military cantonments and alleged arrest, detention and forced disappearances of political and human rights activists by the military in the province. The protesters also had a plan to protest during the march against the killing of a political leader Mr. Akber Bugti in an air attack on 27 August 2006 and the construction of the mega project at Gwader, which will lead large scale of eviction of indigenous people in the area.

The 1200-kilometer long march was scheduled to start from the coastal city of Gwader on November 30 and end at Quetta on December 11. The BNP also planned to hold several meetings during the march in different cities to mobilize people of Balochistan against the military operation, killings and disappearances in the province.

However, the Pakistan government began to arrest the political and human rights activists in order to stop this march and within 72 hours from the night of November 27 more than 400 activists were arrested by the police and military personnel. During the debate in the Senate sessions, the opposition parties accused the government of arresting 158 activists including the former chief minister of Balochistan and other leadership of the BNP within 24 hours only on November 28 in the pretext of the maintenance of Public Order Ordinance. The minister for parliamentary affairs confirmed to the upper house about such arrests but instead of positively dealing with this matter, simply told advised opposition parties to bring the cases to the court for the release of the arrested people.

Meanwhile, many people voluntarily went on strike and closed their shops in different cities of Balochistan in order to protest against such large scale arrest. The people fear that there may be more severe actions against people Balochistan by the military.


BACKGROUND INFORMATION:

Balochistan is the most under developed province of Pakistan, despite the fact that it has very rich mineral resources including gold, silver, copper, oil, natural gas, iron ore and uranium. However, all the resources in the province are controlled by the federal government and only minor royalties or compensation is paid to people in Balochistan. It supplies natural gas to the whole of the country yet three quarters of the province does not have the access to natural gas. The Government of Pakistan pays a meager 5% of the total income from natural resources as royalty to Balochistan.

Also, the country's most populous province, Punjab, is controlling the military, the administration and utilitieses of all the resources. In addition, the government has provided little resources towards social welfare in comparison with other provinces. People in Balochistan blame the federal government for their plight and point out that the benefits derived from the province's natural wealth have not been returned to it.

Besides, poverty levels in Balochistan are believed to be the highest in the country. Every second person in Balochistan are believed to live below the poverty line and only 50 percent of the province's seven million people have access to clean drinking water, only half the children attend primary schools and only a third of children between 12 and 23 months are immunised.

Meanwhile, the Pakistan government continues to conduct military operations and aerial bombardments in the province from 2001. Since December 2005 the Pakistan government has been conducting aerial bombings in several parts of the province. During this period the army has conducted about 12 bombardments and has killed more than 300 people. Besides, the intelligence agencies such as the I.S.I, Military intelligence (M.I.), along with the Intelligence Bureau (I.B), the Navy Intelligence, the Pak Rangers Intelligence, and the Central intelligence Agency of Pakistan (CIAP) are operating very actively. The Police department is also not allowed to go in the torture camps of these with out the permission from military authorities.

To know further details, please also refer to our previous appeals: 
UG-013-2006: PAKISTAN: Urgent help is needed for 200,000 displaced victims of military operations in Balochistan province
UA-144-2006: PAKISTAN: Government shuts down websites in an effort to suppress news on Balochistan


SUGGESTED ACTION:
Please write the letter to the Pakistan authorities listed below and express your grave concern about the mass scale arrests of political and human rights activists in Balochistan.

To support this appeal, please click:

Sample letter:

Dear ________,

PAKISTAN: More than 400 activists arrested within 72 hours prior to President's visit to Balochistan

I am extremely concerned by the large-scale arrests of persons by the Pakistani government in Balochistan province in order to obstruct the planned peaceful protest which is scheduled to begin on 30 November 2006.

According to the information I have received, the Balochistan National Party (BNP) has planed to organize a protest called "Long March" from 30 November 2006 on the same day when President Musharaff will begin his two days visit to Balochistan province. The protest aims at raising voice against the ongoing military operations, alleged arrest, detention and forced disappearances of political and human rights activists by the military as well as the killing of a political leader Mr. Akber Bugti in an air attack on 27 August 2006 and the construction of the mega project at Gwader. 

However, I was informed that more than 400 persons were arrested by the police and military personnel within 72 hours from the night of November 27 in order to stop this planned march. The number of the arrested includes 158 persons including the former chief minister of Balochistan and other leadership of the BNP who were arrested within 24 hours on November 28. All the arrests were made in the pretext of the maintenance of Public Order Ordinance.

It is very regrettable that such large scale arbitrary arrest was made within a very short time only merely to repress the people's protest for their rights fixed during President Musharaff's visit. Such action by the government is in clear violation of the Constitution as well as Article 19 and 21 of the International Covenant for Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) that enshrine the freedom of expression and peaceful assembly. Maintenance of public order cannot justify brutal violation of basic rights of the citizens in the country.

I therefore strongly condemn such arrests and urge you to take immediate action to release all the arrested in Balochistan as soon as possible. I also urge you to take all possible measures to stop the large number of alleged illegal detention, torture, forced disappearance and extrajudicial killings of people in Balochistan. First and important step to stop such violations can be the ratification of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and Convention against Torture (CAT) without further delay. It is shameful to see that Pakistan, the member of the UN Human Rights Council, has a very poor record of the ratification of the major international conventions, and does not take genuine steps to fulfill its primary responsibility to protect and uphold human rights for its citizens.

I look forward to your urgent intervention on this matter.


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PLEASE SEND YOUR LETTERS TO:

1. General Pervez Musharraf
President
President’s Secretariat
Islamabad
PAKISTAN
Fax: +92 51 922 1422, 4768/ 920 1893 or 1835
Email: (please see - http://www.presidentofpakistan.gov.pk/WTPresidentMessage.aspx)

2. Mr. Muhammad Wasi Zafar
Minister of Law, Justice and Human Rights
S Block,
Pakistan Secretariat,
Islamabad,
PAKISTAN
Fax: +92 51 920 2628
E-Mail: minister@molaw.gov.pk

3. Mr. Awais Ghani
Governor of Balochistan
Governor House
Quetta,
Balochistan,
PAKISTAN
Fax: +92 81 920 2178/ 2992

4. Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao
Minister of the Interior
#404, 4/F., R Block,
Pak Secretariat
Islamabad
PAKISTAN
Tel: +92 51 9212026
Fax: +92 51 9202624

5. Mrs Rifat Iqbal
Ambassador of Pakistan
Embassy of Pakistan,
Ailesbury Villa,
1B Ailesbury Road,
Ballsbridge,
Dublin 4
U.S.A
Tel: +1 261 3032 / 01 261 3033
Fax: +1 261 3007

6. Ms. Louise Arbour
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
OHCHR-UNOG
8-14 Avenue de la Paix
1211 Geneva 10
Switzerland
Fax: +41 22 917 9012/0213

7. Ms Leila Zerrougui
Chairperson
Working Group on arbitrary detention
Attn: Mr Miguel de la Lama
OHCHR-UNOG
1211 Geneva 10
SWITZERLAND
Fax: +41 22 917 9006 (ATTENTION: WORKING GROUP ARBITRARY DETENTION)

8. Ms. Hina Jilani
Special Representative of the Secretary General for human rights defenders
Att: Melinda Ching Simon
Room 1-040
C/o OHCHR-UNOG
1211 Geneva 10
SWITZERLAND
Tel: +41 22 917 93 88
Fax: +41 22 917 9006 (ATTN: SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS)


Thank you.

Urgent Appeals Programme
Asian Human Rights Commission (ahrchk@ahrchk.org)



Document Type :
Urgent Appeal Case
Document ID :
UA-386-2006
Countries :
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Extended Introduction: Urgent Appeals, theory and practice

A need for dialogue

Many people across Asia are frustrated by the widespread lack of respect for human rights in their countries.  Some may be unhappy about the limitations on the freedom of expression or restrictions on privacy, while some are affected by police brutality and military killings.  Many others are frustrated with the absence of rights on labour issues, the environment, gender and the like. 

Yet the expression of this frustration tends to stay firmly in the private sphere.  People complain among friends and family and within their social circles, but often on a low profile basis. This kind of public discourse is not usually an effective measure of the situation in a country because it is so hard to monitor. 

Though the media may cover the issues in a broad manner they rarely broadcast the private fears and anxieties of the average person.  And along with censorship – a common blight in Asia – there is also often a conscious attempt in the media to reflect a positive or at least sober mood at home, where expressions of domestic malcontent are discouraged as unfashionably unpatriotic. Talking about issues like torture is rarely encouraged in the public realm.

There may also be unwritten, possibly unconscious social taboos that stop the public reflection of private grievances.  Where authoritarian control is tight, sophisticated strategies are put into play by equally sophisticated media practices to keep complaints out of the public space, sometimes very subtly.  In other places an inner consensus is influenced by the privileged section of a society, which can control social expression of those less fortunate.  Moral and ethical qualms can also be an obstacle.

In this way, causes for complaint go unaddressed, un-discussed and unresolved and oppression in its many forms, self perpetuates.  For any action to arise out of private frustration, people need ways to get these issues into the public sphere.

Changing society

In the past bridging this gap was a formidable task; it relied on channels of public expression that required money and were therefore controlled by investors.  Printing presses were expensive, which blocked the gate to expression to anyone without money.  Except in times of revolution the media in Asia has tended to serve the well-off and sideline or misrepresent the poor.

Still, thanks to the IT revolution it is now possible to communicate with large audiences at little cost.  In this situation there is a real avenue for taking issues from private to public, regardless of the class or caste of the individual.

Practical action

The AHRC Urgent Appeals system was created to give a voice to those affected by human rights violations, and by doing so, to create a network of support and open avenues for action.  If X’s freedom of expression is denied, if Y is tortured by someone in power or if Z finds his or her labour rights abused, the incident can be swiftly and effectively broadcast and dealt with. The resulting solidarity can lead to action, resolution and change. And as more people understand their rights and follow suit, as the human rights consciousness grows, change happens faster. The Internet has become one of the human rights community’s most powerful tools.   

At the core of the Urgent Appeals Program is the recording of human rights violations at a grass roots level with objectivity, sympathy and competence. Our information is firstly gathered on the ground, close to the victim of the violation, and is then broadcast by a team of advocates, who can apply decades of experience in the field and a working knowledge of the international human rights arena. The flow of information – due to domestic restrictions – often goes from the source and out to the international community via our program, which then builds a pressure for action that steadily makes its way back to the source through his or her own government.   However these cases in bulk create a narrative – and this is most important aspect of our program. As noted by Sri Lankan human rights lawyer and director of the Asian Human Rights Commission, Basil Fernando:

"The urgent appeal introduces narrative as the driving force for social change. This idea was well expressed in the film Amistad, regarding the issue of slavery. The old man in the film, former president and lawyer, states that to resolve this historical problem it is very essential to know the narrative of the people. It was on this basis that a court case is conducted later. The AHRC establishes the narrative of human rights violations through the urgent appeals. If the narrative is right, the organisation will be doing all right."

Patterns start to emerge as violations are documented across the continent, allowing us to take a more authoritative, systemic response, and to pinpoint the systems within each country that are breaking down. This way we are able to discover and explain why and how violations take place, and how they can most effectively be addressed. On this path, larger audiences have opened up to us and become involved: international NGOs and think tanks, national human rights commissions and United Nations bodies.  The program and its coordinators have become a well-used tool for the international media and for human rights education programs. All this helps pave the way for radical reforms to improve, protect and to promote human rights in the region.