Baloch is graver issue than Rohingya Muslims: Activist

As the Baloch political and human rights activists have demanded a special rapporteur in the United Nations to probe gross human rights violations in Pakistan's Balochistan province, Baloch activist Ahmar Mastikhan has stressed that Balochistan is a graver crisis than Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar.

"It has been delayed. It could have happened a long time ago and we have a situation of mass graves where there is no domestic redressed available to the people of Balochistan. Has there been some domestic mechanism for them to have their basic and birth human rights protected, we would not have raised this question. We are happy over the Rohingya r rapporteur in Burma, but I assure you, it is more serious issue than Rohingya issue. It is more multi- dimensional and multi-faceted," Mastikhan told ANI.

Baloch Republican Party member Abdul Nawaz Bugti said the renewed impetus to conduct investigations came after, he claimed, that a mass grave was discovered in Pakistan's Dera Bugti in February this year where only women and children were buried.

"We have always highlighted these issues we are facing in Balochistan, especially the human rights violation. In the past two years. Pakistan has been targeting and blackmailing Baloch activists in the UN and in Balochistan. They have now stated to abduct women and children, who are being tortured and facing problems like lack of food and medication," Bugti said.

Baloch political activists and human rights defenders raised the situation of deteriorating human rights in Balochistan on Friday and condemned the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) at a side event during the 34th Session of UN Human Rights Council.

The event was organised by the Baloch Republican Party (BRP) to highlight the gross genocide in Pakistan's largest and resource-rich province of Balochistan.

"Islamabad has thrown to the winds at least 25 out of the 30 articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Balochistan. The execution style, extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests and detentions, enforced disappearances, and kill and dump of thousands of Baloch, use of degrading forms of torture such as feeding feces and sodomy of the Baloch activists have taken place in the last 12 years - and is still continuing," said Ahmar Musti Khan, founder of the American Friends of Balochistan.

Khan also appealed to the United Nations to appoint a special rapporteur on Pakistan to uphold the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Balochistan.

"When theirs is a special rapporteur on Iran and a special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories, it's logical to have a special rapporteur on Pakistan to uphold the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Balochistan," he said.