Tortured bodies of human rights activists – including Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) Core Group Pasni Coordinator Siddique Eido and another human rights activist Yousuf Nazar – were recovered from Ormara, HRCP Sindh Chapter’s Abdul Hai said on Thursday. The HRCP condemned the government’s failure in ensuring Eido’s safe recovery and urged punishment for his murders.
According to a statement issued by HRCP Chairperson Zohra Yusuf, personnel of the security forces are involved in the murders of human rights activists. Ever since Eido’s abduction by men in security forces’ uniforms on December 21 last year, the HRCP had been demanding the government for ensuring his immediate recovery. The uniforms that his abductors had been wearing and the vehicles that they used point towards state agents’ involvement.
Eido had been abducted in the presence of several policemen, but despite such clear evidence, no action was taken to publicly identify or prosecute his abductors and secure his release. Eido had worked to highlight people’s disappearances and other human rights violations in the region, and recently, his own disappearance had also been challenged in the Supreme Court and the HRCP repeatedly highlighted threats to Eido’s life in communications with the government and security forces’ officials.
Yusuf said that the HRCP is disappointed beyond words by the degree of official inaction and callousness that amounts to collusion in Eido’s murder. However, this is not the first time this year that a human rights’ defender associated with the HRCP has been targeted as Core Group Khuzdar Coordinator Naeem Sabir was shot and killed on March 1 and his killers remain at large. These murders highlight the serious threats that human rights’ defenders in Balochistan face on account of their work.
Targeting defenders of human rights is further exacerbating the situation in Balochistan at a time when it seems difficult to imagine how things could possibly get any worse. Most challenges that the state is facing in Balochistan are of its own making and targeting human rights’ defenders would only make the situation worse. The HRCP demands the government to make up for its condonation of criminality by making sure that Eido’s murderers are brought to justice in an open and fair trial.
Moreover, the state cannot ignore its duty of compensating the families of Eido, Sabir and others killed after being abducted by security personnel.
The HRCP also demands that the government stop and prevent harassment and intimidation of human rights’ defenders in Balochistan as it is important to create conditions where they could carry out their work without fear.
