Toronto, September 17, 2022:
Baloch Human Rights Council of Canada, World Sindhi Congress, and Pashtun Council of Canada jointly hosted a protest rally held at Nathan Philips Square, Toronto, as part of an awareness campaign on Pakistani state atrocities, cultural genocide, and enforced disappearances of civilians in Sindh, Balochistan, and Pakhtunkhwa.
Speakers strongly criticized Islamabad’s policies of deliberately drowning Sindh, Balochistan, and Pakhtunkhwa in floods caused by the monsoon rains and climate change. A large number of rights activists from various walks of life attended the protest rally and expressed their thoughts on the dismal state of human rights in Pakistan.
List of speakers:
Tarek Fatah – author and columnist
Sami Jan Mengal – spokesperson, BHRC – Canada
Hajjan Kalhoro – Senior Vice Chairperson, World Sindhi Congress
Siraj Khan – President, Pashtun Council of Canada
Aimal Khattak – Senior Pashtun leader, Pashtun Council of Canada
Mumtaz Khan – representative, Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir
Jahangir Shah Bukhari – member Executive Council, Pashtun Council of Canada
The speakers at the rally strongly criticized Pakistan’s human rights track record and the criminal policy of enforced disappearances of political activists, students, human rights defenders, journalists, lawyers, teachers, and women in Balochistan, Sindh, and Pakhtunkhwa. In addition, Pakistani ISI, Frontier Corps, and the armed forces are guilty of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and military aggression against unarmed civilians and women who have recently become targets of sexual violence by the Pakistan Army and paramilitary forces.
Furthermore, state-sponsored death squads recruited from religious extremist groups, petty criminals, and the drug mafia are involved in the abduction, torture, and in-custody execution of rights activists whose mutilated bodies are dumped in the fields. Pakhtunkhwa province has been leased out to Taliban outfits who control and eliminate sections of the Pashtun population considered a threat to military rule. Thousands of civilians have fallen victim to enforced disappearances at the hands of Pakistani state security forces and their death squads in the last two decades. Speakers elaborated on the monsoon rains, climate change, and the floods that have drowned Sindh, Balochistan, and Pakhtunkhwa thanks to Islamabad’s colonial policies of political and economic hegemony over the oppressed nations. The rulers in Islamabad are using the humanitarian crisis that has emerged from the destruction of floods to beg for international funds which will never be used for the welfare and rehabilitation of ordinary people who have lost everything under the sun.
Speakers reported the unabated continuation of forced disappearances of civilians even during the devastating floods. In addition, the Pakistani state forces, ISI, and the so-called Counter Terrorism Court (CTD) are involved in killing forced disappeared persons in staged fake encounters and in-custody murders.
Representatives of BHRC – Canada, PCC – Canada, and WSC appealed to the international community and the Canadian government to utilize their diplomatic relations, assert pressure on Islamabad, support the victims of human rights abuses, and help release the forced disappeared persons from the Pakistani state custody.
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