May 27, 2008	Tuesday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 21, 1429

QUETTA, May 26: Activists of the Baloch National Front (women’s wing) and Baloch Students Organisation demonstrated outside the Iranian Consulate on Monday in protest against government’s reported plan to hand over detained political activist Ghulam Haider Raisani to Iran.

The protesters took out a procession from the Quetta Press Club that passed through the Jinnah Road and gathered outside the consulate. No official from the consulate came out to receive the memorandum.

They raised slogans against the governments of Pakistan and Iran.

Addressing the protesters, Shahzeb Baloch of the BSO and Farida Baloch of the BNF said Haider Raisani was a Pakistani national and had been struggling for the rights of the Baloch people. The government should not hand him over to a foreign country.

They criticised the behaviour of officials of the Iranian Consulate.

According to them, Haider Raisani was arrested by an intelligence agency a few years ago but the government failed to produce him before a court of law and prove charges against him.