Hear the wails of Zakir Majeed's mother, A.F.B. urges UN bodies

GENEVA, June 14, 2010: The U.S.-based American Friends of Balochistan repeated its call for direct talks with Baloch leaders in the backdrop of the liberation struggle in Occupied Balochistan.

Founder of the A.F.B., Ahmar Mustikhan narrated the ordeal of the affected families of the enforced and involuntarily disappeared Baloch freedom workers and activists and urged the international community to come to their rescue.

Mustikhan was speaking at a conference organized by the Interfaith International on the sidlelines of the 14th session of the U.N. Human Rights Council.

Following is the full text of Mustikhan's speech at the U.N. headquarters called Palace of Nations in Geneva on Monday:

Mother and sister and other family members of Zakir Majeed, vice-chairman of Baloch Students Organization (BSO) Azad, continued their hunger strike outside one of Pakistan's main venues of civil protest Karachi Press Club for the 30th consecutive day last weekend.
His mother said Majeed is a democrat and political activist. Therefore, it is unfair to deny him a chance to defend himself in a court of law.
Majeed's  mother appealed to the international human rights organizations to take notice of enforced and involuntary disappearances in Balochistan.

Majeed, or Dr. Deen Mohammed, or Jalil Reki or Norwegian national Ehsan Arjemandi or Mehbub Wadela, they are just a few names among the more than thousand enforced and involuntary disappearances in Balochistan, the land of the Baloch. Their only sin is they are Baloch and dream of freedom for Balochistan. Perhaps they have committed a second sin -- the color of their skin is brown and this is a white man's world in spite of end of colonialism and racism many decades ago.

According to Nasrullah Baloch, chairman of the Voice of Baloch Missing Persons, until and unless the world community intervenes there is little hope more than a thousand enforced and involuntarily disappeared Baloch persons will ever get justice.
I appeal to United Nations Human Rights Council and its special rapporteurs and international human rights organizations, specifically Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, to take note of the fact that Pakistan's intelligence agencies or supra-state actors in the country's politics are violating their country's own constitution by kidnapping Baloch political workers, intellectuals, doctors, students and people from all walks of life.

As most of you here  know Balochistan has no love lost with Pakistan..

Forced and involuntarily disappeared persons from Balochistan are kept in illegal torture cells where they undergo inhuman torture, that includes drilling in the body and burns by cigarette butts and cuts inflicted on their private parts. They are denied the right to legal counsel.

Most of these victims are even unaware why they have were abducted by the Pakistani secret services in the first place.

In the backdrop of Balochistan's independence struggle, the state secret agencies of Pakistan have expanded their demonic role all over Balochistan. Every Baloch family has a heart wrenching story to tell.

Again returning to my favorite white man's world philosophy --because of the denial of statehood to Balochistan --, I appeal to the civilized nations including the US., European Union, Canada, Russia, to talk directly with the Baloch leadership to address this issue of enforced and involuntary disappearances in the backdrop of Balochistan's freedom movement.

These powers will have to intervene and take notice of the grave violation of human rights in Balochistan being committed by the Pakistani occupation forces.