Geneva, March 19 (IANS) A leading human rights organisation highlighted serious human rights violations in Balochistan, including enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings allegedly carried out by the Pakistani authorities during the United Nations Human Rights Council 61st Session in Geneva.
Addressing the session, Jamal Baloch, media coordinator of Paank, the Baloch National Movement’s Human Rights Department, stated that the abuses are intensifying amid the projects linked to the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor.
“I stand before this council to speak about the systematic human rights violations in Balochistan carried out by Pakistan and sustained through the strategic and economic involvement of China. In Balochistan, enforced disappearances are a state policy. Pakistan’s military operates above the law, abducting students, teachers, journalists and political activists,” he stated.
Highlighting the atrocities on civilians in Balochistan, Jamal said that in 2025, alone, over 1300 people were forcibly disappeared, and more than 200 were extrajudicially killed by Pakistani forces.
Asserting that “peaceful dissent is treated as terrorism”, he said that women-led civil rights movements like Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC) are crushed and all districts in Balochistan are placed under internet blackouts to conceal military operations and silence victims.
“These crimes have escalated alongside projects tied to the China-Pakistan economic corridor to secure strategic interests and resource extraction. Pakistan’s military has intensified repression and militarised civilian lives,” Jamal added.
Condemning the rising abuses, the activist further said, “Enforced disappearance is a crime against humanity. Extrajudicial killing is murder under international law. Development cannot be built on mass graves, and sovereignty cannot be used as a license to brutalise an entire people.”
Jamal called for an independent international fact-finding mission, accountability for Pakistan’s military leadership, and an end to international partnerships that enable repression.
Meanwhile, speaking at the council as part of Baloch National Movement’s (BNM) month-long campaign highlighting ongoing human rights abuses in Balochistan, activist Saleem Ellahi Baloch called for immediate global action to pressurise Pakistan to stop its “inhumane” actions in Balochistan.
He recounted the enforced disappearance of his elder brother, Zahid Baloch, former Chairman of the Baloch Students Organisation (Azad), who was forcibly disappeared by Pakistani security forces on March 18, 2014, and has not been produced before any civil court since then.
Saleem also recalled the extrajudicial killing of his brother, Shah Jahan, in 2025, and raised grave concerns over the continued “illegal” detention of BYC chief organiser Mahrang Baloch and other leaders.
“Families of the forcibly disappeared are being displaced, their homes being destroyed, and their assets seized and controlled by the military. These tactics are designed solely to silence those who raise their voices for their loved ones. Human rights violations in Balochistan are escalating at an alarming pace. Political and human rights activists are being silenced in brutal and inhumane ways. Mahrang Baloch, a human rights activist, is still imprisoned along with other BYC activists on fabricated charges,” he stated.
–IANS
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