Police officials present arrested lawyer and human rights activist Imaan Mazari-Hazir before a court in Islamabad, on August 20, 2023.GHULAM RASOOL/AFP/Getty Images
For 10 years Mahrang Baloch has been organizing marches, filing legal cases and speaking out as one of the leaders of a movement protesting enforced disappearances in the Pakistani province of Balochistan.
Dr. Baloch’s father, Abdul Ghaffar Langove, was abducted in Karachi in 2009; two years later his corpse was recovered in an abandoned hotel showing signs of torture. In 2017, her brother Nasir Baloch was abducted. Fearing he would also be killed, she began campaigning. She is now a member of the Baloch Yakjehti Council, an activist organization that spearheads many initiatives on behalf of the murdered and missing.
The 31-year-old’s message to those whose loved ones have vanished is simple: “You must come out from your homes. You must join this movement, because other than that, there is no hope,” she said in an interview. “We have been the direct victims of state atrocities.”
Her story is a familiar narrative in Balochistan, where there is a long simmering separatist movement. Rich in minerals and oil and gas reserves, it is also the most impoverished province. Ethnic Baloch allege the federal government has neglected their provincial education system and infrastructure, outsourced their jobs and exploited their natural resources. Over the past few decades, there have been multiple waves of violent insurgencies. The national security Inter-Services Intelligence and paramilitary groups began abducting alleged Islamic extremists in the 1970s. The practice intensified after 9/11 and has since became entrenched, with targets expanding to include separatists, students, human-rights activists, journalists and political opponents.
While these disappearances are common occurrences in Balochistan, they happen throughout Pakistan. According to the non-profit Defence of Human Rights, 51 cases of enforced disappearances were registered in 2023. (Activists allege the number is much higher, citing hesitancy to report.)
“Balochistan had been a very active volcano, which could erupt at any time,” said Nosheen Qanbrani, a lecturer at Sardar Bahdur Khan Women University in Quetta who has joined the protest movement. “It needed a spark, and Balach’s case was this spark.”
Balach Mola Bakhsh, 20, was abducted from his home in the city of Turbat by men in civilian dress on Oct. 29, 2023. His family suspected the security services, specifically the Counter Terrorism Department. They filed a missing persons complaint but received no response until Nov. 21, when Mr. Bakhsh appeared in a local court facing terrorism charges. Two days later he was dead. The CTD released a statement that Mr. Bakhsh had confessed involvement in terrorist activity and was killed during crossfire in an intelligence operation. His family allege the CDT killed Mr. Bakhsh while he was in its custody, and that his death is just the latest state-sanctioned extrajudicial killing in Balochistan.
To protest the death, hundreds of women, including Dr. Baloch, travelled 1,600 kilometres to Islamabad from the southern Kech district of the province. Many carried photos of their own missing loved ones. At rallies along the way, they urged others with missing family members to register the disappearances, helping to get new cases filed. Members of other ethnic minorities within Pakistan, including Sindhis, Pashtuns and the people of Gilgit-Baltistan, showed their support with local rallies.
The marchers arrived on Dec. 22 and set up camp on the grounds of the National Press Club, sleeping under blankets and around open fires as temperatures hovered around freezing. Police used water cannons and tear gas on marchers, and held and arrested hundreds, trying, unsuccessfully, to deport detainees back to Balochistan.
After a month, the women returned home. While the majority of arrested protesters were eventually released, the charges against them, including unlawful assembly, property damage, armed robbery and rioting remain. International human-rights organizations including Amnesty International have condemned the police conduct.
“I’m proud of the women who joined this protest,” said Hina Jilani, lawyer and co-founder of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, a non-profit independent organization.
It is frequently young women who lead activism on behalf of the disappeared, she added. Often male relatives have been abducted, leaving female-only households. Other times women take a more visible role because they fear their male family members will be targeted if they speak publicly.
Activist and student Sammi Deen Baloch, 25, remembers the first time she heard the words “enforced disappearance.” She was 10 years old, at a news conference in Quetta, Balochistan’s capital, shortly after her father went missing. Two years later, she joined her first march to Islamabad with other families whose loved ones had vanished. Now, like Dr. Baloch, she has been protesting for much of her life. Both women were at the forefront of the recent demonstration. (The two women are not related. Many ethnically Baloch Pakistanis use the last name of Baloch as a signifier of community solidarity and the fight for autonomy.)
Ms. Deen Baloch encourages other families to overcome their fears and register missing persons cases. “You don’t know where your loved one is, but in every moment, you are thinking of him. We have no other option but to do this. At the age of 10 I had to take the burden of my responsibilities of my home, my family and my education, and to keep struggling for my father.”
Law enforcement’s practice of extrajudicial kidnapping is referred to by many Pakistanis as a policy of “kill and dump.” When an individual disappears in this manner, no arrest is declared, and therefore no case can be traced though the courts. People are simply missing, often for years. Frequently, dead bodies are left on roadsides. (Pakistani government representatives did not respond to interview requests.)
“This is a crime against humanity that is being committed by the state of Pakistan. There are no circumstances under which enforced disappearances can be justified,” Ms. Jilani said. “We are not against people who have committed crimes being tried in a court of law and charged with the crimes that they have committed, but do it within the framework of the rule of law.”
Activists have been petitioning for the return of loved ones and an end to extrajudicial killings throughout successive governments. They are skeptical of all the major parties, and see the results of recent national elections – in which no party secured a majority of votes – as irrelevant. During their sit-in in Islamabad, then caretaker prime minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar – from Balochistan himself – labelled the protesters and those supporting them as terrorists.
Such comments are irresponsible and provoke violence against the protesters, said Mary Lawlor, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on human-rights defenders. “They spread this misinformation about them, which exposes them to more danger, more intimidation and more threats. The threats start online and they move offline. This creates a whole environment where it is much easier to attack them, even kill them.”
Dr. Baloch is defiant when it comes to labels of militancy. “Advocating the rights movement of my own people, if it makes me a militant, then I’m ready to take this militant position,” she said. “They fear that they will get their loved ones’ corpses. Women led the march and that has given courage to other women. In Baloch culture, when a woman is part of a movement, it’s legitimized.”
Weeks after the Islamabad protest, federal politicians are still refusing to discuss the women’s demands. But public sentiment appears to be shifting in favour of the protesters. “The reception that they’ve received this time indicates that the general public, they’re all standing with these women,” said Imaan Mazari-Hazir a prominent Pakistani human-rights lawyer. “That fear or the hesitation to come out, which we saw before, I feel these women have broken that.”