ISLAMABAD – The relatives of 350 prisoners including 16 women in different jails of China staged a protest demonstration in support of the release of their dear ones on Wednesday. They demanded the government bring the jailed Pakistanis back to the country for trials under the Geneva Accord.
Wajahat Ali, who had been fighting to get his brother released for the last four years, said that Pakistan had inked an agreement with China in December 2007 for the repartition of the prisoners but the government had not done anything to implement the accord.
The protesters while holding placards and pictures of their relatives, warned the government to play its due role for the releases of their relatives, otherwise they would block Karakoram Road that is a link between China and Pakistan.
The prisoners had been arrested and jailed by the Chinese authorities for entering China illegally and indulging in narcotics’ smuggling while many of them had been sentenced to death. Another affected Sher Ghazi said that recently Pakistan received a dead body of one Abid Hussain who died in China’s Jail.
The protesters castigated the foreign office for its failure to collect data of Pakistani prisoners and said that it was the duty of the officials in different countries’ embassies to have complete data about the Pakistanis. Member National Assembly (MNA) Marvi Memon and some other politicians from Gilgit-Baltistan visited the protest venue to express solidarity with the relatives of the prisoners.
