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Baloch Voice Association, an NGO based in Paris, organised a three-day poster manifestation to highlight a three-fold increase in enforced disappearances in Balochistan.
The manifestation started on Monday in front of the Human Rights Commission in Geneva on the occasion of its 51st session. Activists displaying the posters narrating the deteriorating condition of the Baloch people. The posters carry slogans -- "Pakistan end epidemic of enforced disappearances in Balochistan", "Kidnap, torture, murder, the plight of Pakistan's thousands of disappeared", "Free Free Free Balochistan", "Pakistan end occupation of Balochistan". Baloch activists have termed the Chinese China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) projects as exploitative. Notably, earlier, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) expressed alarm over reports of a fresh wave of enforced disappearances in Balochistan and the rest of Pakistan. Experts believe that the missing persons may be dead or their mutilated bodies dumped into ditches and may be locked in some detention centres. The 51st regular session of the Human Rights Council is being organized from September 12 to October 7, 2022 in Geneva. In June this year, Doda Ellahi and Ghamshad Baloch -- students of Karachi University's Philosophy Department were allegedly taken away from their house. The students belonging to the Kech district of Balochistan went missing on June 7. "#Balochstudents become posters on wall due to #EnforcedDisappearances.The two students of KU's Philosophy Dept. -- Doda Baloch and Ghamshad Baloch were taken away from their home near Maskan Chowrangi #karachi on June 7 and till date their whereabouts are unknown.#UNO," tweeted Mengal. The constant reports of enforced disappearances in Pakistan have raised questions over the role of the special committee, constituted by the former chairperson of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, which was supposed to investigate such cases. In March 2011, the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances (COIOED) was formed to work on the issue. According to recent figures released by COIOED in July 2022, a total of 8,696 missing person cases have been reported. While 6,513 of these cases have been solved, 2,219 are still pending, as per DW news. Despite efforts by civil society, there is no end to the issue of enforced disappearances in Pakistan. The irony is that successive Pakistan governments have pledged to end the practice of enforced disappearances but there is no end to it, said Canada-based think tank, International Forum for Rights and Security (IFFRAS). (ANI)
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