Vancouver Rally Press Release

Press Release 

Vancouver, January 31, 2011 – Baloch Human Rights Council (Canada) and the International Voice for Baloch Missing Persons staged a peaceful rally today in front of the US Consulate to express their concern over the gross human rights violations in Balochistan by Iran and Pakistan.  

Activists of IVBMP and BHRC were carrying banners and placards demanding, Stop US Military Aid to Pakistan and the UN and Western Democracies to Intervene in Balochistan to put an end to the extra-judicial killings and summary executions of innocent Baloch civilians by the Iranian and Pakistani paramilitary death squads.  

The participants of the rally including women and children braved the Canadian weather to express their grievances and anguish over the dismal human rights conditions in the Iranian and Pakistani occupied Balochistan now spiralling out of control due to the silence of the UN bodies and the West. Baloch human rights activists held placards that stated, Baloch Hate Slavery; Save the World from Paki Nukes; Stop Iran from Developing Nukes; Paki Army = Taliban + Al-Qaida; Pakistan + Iran = Global Terrorism; Who did 911 = Pakistan.   

The US Consulate Public Relations Officers spoke with Mr. Aziz Baloch and appreciated the concerns of the participants. The US officials were handed the BHRC-IVBMP letter of concern addressed to the US Ambassador David Jacobson and US Consulate General Vancouver. 

The rally was part of the international ‘Save Balochistan’ campaign in which Baloch from all the three areas of Balochistan – Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan took part.     

Aziz Baloch 

Vice President, BHRC (Canada) 

Co-ordinator, IVBMP (Canada) 

Letter to U.S. Consulate General Vancouver 

18-5778 Rupert Street 

Vancouver, BC V5R 2K6 

Tel: (604) 325-4552 

Email: balochcommunity.bc.ca@gmail.com 

January 31, 2011 

Ambassador David Jacobson 

The Embassy of the United States of America 

490 Sussex Drive 

Ottawa, Ontario K1N 1G8 

Hon. Phillip Chicola 

U.S. Consulate General Vancouver 

1075 West Pender Street 

Vancouver, BC 

Subject:  Concern over gross human rights violations in Balochistan by Iran and Pakistan 

Your Excellency: 

The purpose of our peaceful rally today is to express our concern over the ongoing military operation and summary executions conducted by the Pakistani and Iranian occupation forces in Balochistan. We also would like to express our concern regarding the U.S. military aid to Pakistan, which is being diverted by the army to crush the freedoms and rights movement in Balochistan. Instead of fighting the Afghan Taliban, the Al-Qaida linked Haqqani Terror-Network in North Waziristan, or Mulla Omar’s Quetta Shura; the Pakistani military and its intelligence services are committing atrocities against civilian Baloch populace.    

Your Excellency: 

We would like to bring to your attention the cruel nature of the widespread crimes against humanity committed by Pakistan and its armed forces against civilians including students, lawyers, journalists, political activists, women, and children in Balochistan. Since 2003, Pakistan army is involved in the aerial bombing of tribal villages by American-made gunship helicopters, displacement of 250,000 tribal inhabitants from their lands, enforced disappearance of 13,000 Baloch civilians including 149 women and 168 children, arbitrary arrests, torture of political detainees, extra-judicial killing, target-killing of leaders, and in-custody murder of Baloch rights activists. In the last six months alone, more than eighty mutilated bodies of disappeared Baloch youth were dumped in the wilderness with clear marks of severe torture and bullets shot in the head. The kill-and-dump policy of the Pakistani security forces including the intelligence services (I.S.I & M.I.) is now rampant across Balochistan. 

Balochistan is the site of the 1998 nuclear tests with dire consequences on the environment, people, and wildlife. Pakistan’s military is turning the land of the Baloch people into a dumping area of nuclear waste and the testing ground for WMDs and missiles bought from North Korea. 

The Iranian occupied Balochistan is experiencing a similar human rights situation with public hangings, summary executions, and arbitrary arrest of thousands of Baloch civilians for their opposition to the orthodox tyrannical regime. The Islamic Republic of Iran is engaged in a policy of systematic cultural genocide, denying the right to the use of Balochi language as a medium of instruction and for the expression of art, literature, and music. Statistics show that with the coming to power of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Baloch dissidents are the highest in number among the victims of summary executions and public hanging in Iran. 

Iran and Pakistan forcefully occupied the sovereign nation of Balochistan in 1928 and 1948 respectively. The division and annexation of Balochistan into foreign states has resulted in the loss of indigenous land, culture, and natural resources to the autocratic rulers of Iran and Pakistan.    

Your Excellency: 

As the voice of our people, we call upon the U.S. Administration: 

Stop all military aid to Pakistan immediately.  

• Assert diplomatic means to end the gross human rights violations against the Baloch civilians in Iran and Pakistan. 
• Review US-Pakistan relationship and actively engage in building bridges with the Baloch nation. 
• Support the Baloch voice in dismantling Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program. 
• Support human rights in the Iranian occupied Balochistan. 
• Accelerate the process of stopping Iran becoming a nuclear weapon state. 

Thank you. 

Yours Sincerely, 

Aziz Baloch,   

Vice President BHRC (Canada) 

Co-ordinator, International Voice for Baloch Missing Persons (Canada)