Geneva: 11 March 2020

During the general debate on Item-4 of the 43rd regular session of the United Nations Human Rights Council, the BHRC representative for Western Balochistan, Jamshaid Amiri, informed the council that Pakistani security forces, its clandestine agencies and death squads are committing enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings in Balochistan on a mass scale.

Jamshaid Amiri drew the council’s attention to a recent case involving the abduction of a Baloch woman Bibi Zargul who was tortured to death in detention on 2^nd March ahead of International Women’s Day. He further said that thousands of people including the elderly, women and children have been internally displaced. Many were forced to flee the country and seek asylum in faraway countries.

In addition to that, he told the council that Pakistan is promoting religious extremism in Balochistan to target the Baloch and religious minorities including the Christians and Hindus that runs in parallel with other types of human rights violations. He requested the council that the gravity and widespread scale of violence by Pakistan in constant disregard of the norms, customs and rules demand an equally strong response from this council. The council should investigate the alleged human rights violations by sending a fact-finding mission to Balochistan, and this should be done without delay, concluded Jamshaid.