Hamid Yazdan Panah - Human Rights in Balochistan: A Case Study in Failure and Invisibility
Last month a shocking
story gained little traction in the mainstream press, despite its horrific
implications and brutal reality. A report from Iran emerged which detailed how every male from a village in the
province of Sistan Balochistan had been executed. The Baloch, an ethnic
minority in both Pakistan and Iran, continue to face systematic repression in
both of these countries, yet remain largely ignored in both the East and the
West. Simply having their voices heard remains a major struggle for this
stateless population faced with poverty, violence and discrimination.
The Baloch are a
distinct ethnic group who reside in the lands between southwestern Pakistan,
southeastern Iran and a very small section of southwestern Afghanistan. Yet
many fear that they have become invisible in their plight. Their struggle is
reduced to a footnote in a region locked in turmoil. Their stories are
overshadowed by the refugee crisis, bloody civil wars, and an attempt to
silence them in the countries they now reside.
The executions in
question took place in the village of Roushanabad, in southeastern Tehran, with the
entire male population being arrested and sentenced to death on drug charges.
Incidentally, Sistan Balochistan is Iran’s poorest province, and home to the
ethnic Baloch who remain disenfranchised in Iran both as an ethnic minority
and as Sunni muslims.
The majority of those
executed in the province faced drug charges, and often receive convictions
without access to counsel or proper due process. Iran’s use of the death
penalty in such cases is illegal under international law, yet the practice not
only continues, but is actually funded by the United Nations and European countries.
For the Baloch
residing in these villages, smuggling remains one of the only viable sources
for income, in a country where they are often equated as lower class criminals.
The disproportionate executions of Baloch in Iran is an obvious indication of
this reality. One which begins at an early age for Baloch youth. In fact,
Iran’s Vice President for Women and Family Affairs herself remarked, “Their children are potential drug
traffickers as they would want to seek revenge and provide money for their
families. There is no support for these people.”
The situation of the
Baloch in Pakistan is much the same. Ethnic Baloch remainsecond-class citizens within the country. Over the
last decade thousands of ethnic Baloch have disappeared in the Western
Pakistani province of Balochistan allegedly abducted by state security forces.
Often times bodies are found days later, with visible signs of torture or
mutilation, in what has come to be called the Kill and Dump policy of Pakistan. In other instances
a body is never recovered, and the state denies any responsibility.
Over the last 6
months, Pakistan has conducted a series of low profile raids in Balochistan,
often times targeting activists under the pretext of fighting “terrorists” and
“miscreants”. Underlying these repressive policies is Pakistan’s construction
of a major port in Balochistan, with the cooperation of the Chinese. This
strategic port has not only resulted in increased tension between the Baloch
and the Pakistani government, but has raised allegations of ethnic cleansing by the authorities against the local
population.
The invisible war in Balochistan is a case study on the
failures of human rights and international outcry in a world saturated with
injustice. There are no flotillas going to Balochistan, nor is their struggle a
cause célèbre for Western intellectuals or activists. The Baloch are repressed
at home, ignored abroad, and treated as an inconvenient relic from the past
that won’t go away. It appears that those who remain stateless and are of
little use for particular political agenda are fated to remain marginalized and
invisible in the modern world.
More posts on Baluchistan
