Islamabad: Dr Mehrang Baloch, central organizer of Pakistan's Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC) and prominent human rights leader, has written a letter to the people of Balochistan from jail. She has been in a Pakistani jail for more than two weeks. The Pakistan government had arrested Mehrang Baloch on charges of disrupting public order. Mehrang Baloch is representing thousands of families of Balochistan whose loved ones were killed or kidnapped by the Pakistani army. No trace of most of these people has been found till date. However, the Pakistani army is continuously oppressing these people by calling them traitors and terrorists.
Baloch Yakjehti Committee issued a letter
The letter, issued by the Baloch Yakjehti Committee on Saturday, is written from Cell Number 5, Block 9 of Huda Jail in Quetta, where Dr Baloch is kept in solitary confinement. He wrote at the beginning of the letter, "My unbroken countrymen, from Cell Number 5 in Block Number 9 of Huda Jail, your sisters Mehrang and Bibo wish you all another Eid in bondage." In his message, Dr Baloch addressed the ongoing state repression in Balochistan, including political arrests, forced disappearances and violence against protesters.
Officials providing old newspapers in jail
He wrote that the most painful aspect of his detention was that he was kept away from current events, as jail officials only provide two-day-old newspapers. "Despite this, we know that the whole of Balochistan has risen in protest," she said. She also added, "This gives us hope that despite the government's violence, our nation is resolute and continues to resist."
Mehrang's father was killed in this same jail
She mentioned that the jail where she is being held is the same jail where her father spent three years in detention. He was killed extrajudicially (at the behest of the government) in 2011. "I am grateful to the government for choosing Huda jail for my detention. This place was the center of my suffering," she wrote. "It has been my life's desire to visit the place where my father was kept and where he was tortured. I wanted to experience that last moment, which was his last moment," she wrote.
Serious allegations against Pakistani army
Dr Baloch also referred to the events of March 21, when the Pakistani army opened fire on a peaceful protest in Quetta, killing 13-year-old Nematullah and 20-year-old Habib Baloch. He said the bodies were mistreated and the families of the victims were abused by intelligence personnel. He claimed that his own arrest, the arrest of Bibo Baloch and others, resulted from protesting these abuses.
Told about the brutality of Quetta police
"I saw the assistant commissioner of Quetta - his hands were shaking," he recalled. "He was shouting, 'Grab those bastards!' and ordering batons to be used on Baloch women." Dr Baloch criticized government institutions for spending billions on suppressing the BYC movement and accused the authorities of trying to distort its image through media propaganda.
Support of the people of Balochistan
"BYC is a movement of the common people," she wrote. "Your actions and propaganda are not weakening it - they are making it stronger." "We will face every oppression and lie of the state with courage, determination and organized struggle," she added. She described the current times as a turning point in the Baloch political resistance. "Twenty years ago, only Baloch men were imprisoned. Today, Baloch women have become a wall of resistance against your oppressive system," she wrote. Concluding her letter, Dr Baloch wrote, "On this Eid, I cannot stand outside the Press Club with the families of the disappeared, but from cell number 5 of this prison, I join their silent protest."
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