Mehran Baluch on Pakistan Occupied Baluchistan

More than 95 percent of people in Balochistan still use cow dung and wood to cook their food while Balochistan natural gas is supplied hundreds of miles away to the Punjab.

Mehran Baluch

(WASHINGTON DC) - Addressing the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) last year about severe human rights issues in his home country, Baluchistan, Mehran Baluch, the Baluch representative at the UNHRC, discusses the Baluch struggle for liberation from Pakistani occupation and oppression.

Goals goals include communicating the need to promote and protect all Human Rights and Civil Civil Rights, while also addressing key issues involving political, economic, social and cultural rights, including the right of development.

Baluch said, " ...it is now recognized worldwide that denial of political and civil rights of a people do not take place in isolation but these denials go hand in hand with the denial of cultural and economic rights."

He believes the secular cultural values of Balochistan are heavily compromised, and remain are under threat as religious fundamentalists are given a license to throw acid in the faces of Baloch women teachers in Quetta for not covering their faces. One such attack took place last September.

The victims in that attack were identified as Robina Mushwani, 21, Fazila Bangulzai, 23, Sajida Bibi, 24 and Surriya Langhov, 21.

"To understand who is doing this, I like to ask the collective wisdom in this house to think of Osama bin Laden, who was living comfortably next door to the Pakistan Military Academy in Kakul.

The late Professor Saba Dashtyari

"The attack on Balochistan's cultural landscape is serious. On June 1, Professor Saba Dashtyari was killed by the Pakistani intelligence services in Quetta, his family and friends said.

"The victim was a cultural icon of Balochistan and an institution by himself. Professor Dashtiyari had written more than 24 books on Balochi literature, history, poetry.

"He was also called the Noam Chomsky of Balochistan because of his liberal outlook on life and society. Professor Dashtiyari was one among a handful of Baloch teachers employed at the Balochistan University."

Baluch says Pakistan has firmly shut the doors of employment on the face of Baloch teachers.

"Even some highly qualified Baloch professors who have acquired Phds from reputable foreign universities are denied jobs at Balochistan University, while alien teachers are imported from Punjab and elsewhere.

"Professor Dashtyari was killed just three days after he delivered an animated speech on the 13th anniversary of Pakistan's nuclear tests in Balochistan. Travesty of justice on the cultural front is extreme.

"For example one of the main brains behind the nuclear test, Dr. Samar Mubarakmand, has been made the head of the world's top multi-billion Reko Diq gold-and-copper project in Balochistan. The Baloch nomad's child, now exposed to nuclear radiation because of Mubarakmand's nuclear tests, remains malnourished and bare foot in the same area.

Violation of economic rights of Baloch people is also extreme. More than 95 percent of people in Balochistan still use cow dung and wood to cook their food while Balochistan natural gas is supplied hundreds of miles away to the Punjab."

Salem-News.com covers Baluchistan

Learn more, visit: http://www.crisisbalochistan.com

TK