Dublin, April 2 (IANS) Mary Lawlor, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights defenders, expressed grave concerns over the relentless harassment and criminalisation of women’s rights activists and Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC) leader Sabiha Baloch and her family by the Pakistani authorities, alongside the ongoing targeting of the other BYC members.
Calling for an immediate end to such measures, she stressed that the actions appear to be linked to the human rights organisation’s peaceful activities in promoting and defending human rights.
“I am very concerned by the reported continued harassment and criminalisation of WHRD Sabiha Baloch and her family by the authorities in Pakistan, as well as the ongoing targeting of the Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC). This appears to be in response to their peaceful promotion and defence of human rights and must stop,” Lawlor posted on X.
Last month, the BYC strongly condemned what it described as the “baseless, politically motivated allegations” against the organisation and its central leader, Sabiha Baloch, asserting it has always been a peaceful movement, consistently advocating for human rights in Balochistan.
The BYC said that Balochistan’s Chief Minister Sarfaraz Bugti and the Inspector General of Police, during a press conference on March 18, presented Farzana Zehri — forcibly disappeared from Khuzdar district in December 2025 — who, after more than three and a half months incommunicado, was made to speak against BYC and Sabiha, linking them to militant groups and alleged suicide attack training.
Raising serious concerns, the rights body alleged that the Pakistani establishment is “using propaganda and staged press conferences to silence human rights defenders”.
“This raises grave constitutional and legal questions: where was Farzana Zehri during this period, why was she not presented before a court, and why was she held incommunicado instead of in a lawful detention facility? Her coerced statement cannot be considered credible,” the BYC stated.
“This propaganda appears deliberately aimed at justifying the illegal detention of BYC leaders and a state crackdown on the organisation, while discrediting a peaceful movement advocating for justice. There is no evidence linking Sabiha Baloch or BYC to these allegations,” it added.
Earlier in March, marking one year of what it termed as
“illegal detention” of its leadership, the BYC said that the prolonged imprisonment of Mahrang Baloch and other leaders reflects the “panic” of the Pakistani system rather than punishment for any crime.
Several other human rights organisations have recently called for the immediate release of the BYC leaders, demanding that all “false and politically motivated charges” be dropped and that free, fair trials without state pressure must be ensured.
–IANS
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