Outcry over ‘unlawful detention’ of HR activist

KARACHI: Despite a passage of one week to his ‘detention’, rights activist and general secretary of the Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum Saeed Baloch has been neither produced in any court of law nor officially shown arrested in any criminal case, sparking outrage from international rights groups.

On Jan 16, Mr Baloch, who is also the general secretary of the employees’ union of the Fishermen Cooperative Society (FCS), was called to an office of the Pakistan Rangers, Sindh, in Keamari and since then his whereabouts have not been known to anyone.

The FCS came under the spotlight a few months ago when the Rangers picked up its vice chairman Sultan Qamar Siddiqui and others for allegedly financing terrorism and corruption.

However, a spokesman for the Rangers on Monday refused to comment on reports about Mr Baloch’s arrest. PFF Chairman Mohammad Ali Shah told Dawn that Mr Baloch’s family had challenged his “illegal detention” by the Rangers before the Sindh High Court.

Also on Monday, an international rights organisation issued a strongly worded statement condemning the arrest and detention of Mr Baloch by the Rangers and demanding his immediate release.

South Asians for Human Rights (SAHR), a network of human rights defenders based in seven South Asian countries, held the government responsible for the arrest. The organisation said it “perceives that the arrest may be intended to restrain the activities for the promotion and protection of human rights and the efforts for the prevention of harm to human rights defenders”.

It also strengthened the belief of the human rights community worldwide that counterterrorism legislation was being used by many states to repress human rights activity and intimidate human rights defenders.

It urged the national human rights institutions as well as relevant parliamentary and judicial bodies in Pakistan to take immediate action for the release of Mr Baloch, also one of the senior members of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, and to ensure his safety while in custody. The rights body further demanded that the condition of his detention be made public immediately.

Reminding the government of all its responsibilities under national laws and of its obligations under international laws, SAHR called upon the government to give lawyers and human rights bodies full access to Mr Baloch to ensure that his physical and psychological integrity is safeguarded.

Notices issued

A division bench of the Sindh High Court issued notices to the Rangers, the provincial police chief, and the federal and provincial law officers to file their respective comments regarding illegal detention of Mr Baloch till Feb 1.

The petitioner’s counsel, Shahid Hussain Soomro, told the bench comprising Justices Ahmad Ali M. Shaikh and Mohammad Kareem Khan Agha that Mr Baloch was a prominent civil society activists who had been struggling for the rights of the people engaged in fishing and working on harbour, fishing boats and Dock labourers.

He submitted that Mr Baloch along with Mahar Bux and Dil Murad had been in the unlawful detention of the Rangers since Jan 16. He asked the court to declare that the detention of Mr Baloch and others was illegal, unauthorised, mala fide and without any lawful authority and direct the Rangers to produce the detainees in the court and set them at liberty forthwith.

Published in Dawn, January 26th, 2015