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Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
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Thiranjala Weerasinghe sj.- One Island Two Nations
?????????????????????????????????????????????????Wednesday, August 31, 2016
Enforced Disappearances: Curse in the Killings Field
Enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings continue unabated in Balochistan – Voice for Baloch Missing Persons (VBMP)
(August 30 , 2016, Balochistan, Sri Lanka Guardian) “The 30th of
August is marked internationally as Enforced Disappearance day but in
Balochistan, the blatant violation of human rights, extrajudicial
killings and enforced disappearances of Baloch are continuing at the
hands of the state agencies.” the statement issued by the VBMP has
noted.
The state institutions and politicians justify their blatant human
rights violations under the pretence of Pakistani patriotism; despite
the obvious oppression and extreme deprivation imposed upon the Baloch
society by this state.
Balochistan’s home minister (Sarfraz Bugti) admitted that more than
13500 people have been arrested in Balochistan during a period of the
first half year; through National Action Plan. But state officials are
unable to provide details or whereabouts of the “arrested” people, even
the relatives of the victims are unaware of the fate of their forcibly
disappeared beloved.
The arrested people are often killed in staged encounters and are
falsely declared to be terrorists. On August 13, 2016, the dead bodies
of Gazain Baloch and Salman Qambrani were found dumped in Balochistan.
The last time they were seen alive was when they were arrested a year
earlier on July 7, 2015, at their residence situated on Qambrani Road in
Quetta. At that time, their relatives had gone to the area police
station to register First Information Report (FIR) regarding their
abducted loved ones. Although Gazain Baloch and Salman Qambrani were
picked up by state institutes along with Frontier Corps and other forces
in broad day light; before the eyes of hundreds of citizens. The police
outright refused to file the FIR. Then the aggrieved people contacted
the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP),
International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) and the Voice for Baloch
Missing Persons (VBMP) and registered details with them for assistance
in the safe recovery of the enforced disappeared Gazain Baloch and
Salman Qambrani. Sadly such examples exist abundantly in Balochistan.
The Voice for Baloch Missing Persons repeatedly received complaints by
effected families that torture is routinely used to coerce confessional
statements from the detainees. One such example is the confession
statements of Abdul Bari Nichari. The relatives of Abdul Bari Nichari
communicated that he was arrested by police on October 19, 2015, after a
quarrel with his cousins and put in lockup at a police station.
Afterwards, the involved parties resolved their conflicts and he was
released. Astonishingly, in a video aired by the provincial government,
Mr Nichari is seen confessing about a bomb blast in the local bus which
occurred on October 19, 2015. It’s absurd to think that a person who was
arrested on October 19, 2015, and in the custody of the police could
have detonated a bomb blast on a bus the same day.
This and other such incidents raise serious questions about the
transparency and authenticity of confessional statements extracted from
detained people by government officials. The organisation VBMP already
challenged the authenticity of confessional statements from detainees,
but now the evidence has validated those concerns. The organisation by
this time revealed that enforced disappeared people are charged in
fraudulent cases, and they are also being killed in fake encounters.
Most often their bodies show marks inflicted by extreme acts of torture.
Afterwards, the victims are falsely declared as terrorists. But the
state institute’s trickeries have been publicly exposed.
Regrettably, no government institute and the judiciary are intervening
in the ongoing inhuman activities in Balochistan, nor has the
international community given sufficient attentions to atrocities on
Baloch. Here in Balochistan, the media has also failed to fully portray
the real picture. Hence all these factors give the state forces full
impunity to commit human rights abuses and enforced disappearances.
The organisation Voice for Baloch Missing Persons often receives
complaints from victim families that they are being harassed by state
forces to withdraw from their struggle for safe recovery of enforced
disappeared persons. The organisation condemns the inhuman acts of
government institutes and demands for judicial rights and due legal
process for all including Baloch missing persons because the national
and international laws guarantee human rights to citizens without any
discrimination.
In the accordance of 30th August International Day for
Enforced Disappearance, the organization Voice for Baloch Missing
Persons (VBMP) once again invites attentions of political parties, human
rights organizations, the justice providing bodies and urges the
international community with United Nation to play their due role to
investigate the catastrophic human rights abuses in Balochistan and
reject Pakistan’s illegal practice of enforced disappearances.