ISLAMABAD: Students from various universities and members of the Awami Workers Party (AWP) gathered outside the National Press Club this Friday to show solidarity with General Secretary of the Baloch Students Organisation (Azad) (BSO-A) Latif Johar.

Johar has been on hunger strike in front of the Karachi Press Club since April 22, demanding the release of BSO-Azad Chairman Zahid Baloch, who was allegedly arrested by intelligence agencies on March 18 in Quetta.

Students chanted slogans calling for a stop to enforced disappearances within Pakistan.

They said despite the fact that Johar’s condition was critical there had been no response from the government on Zahid Baloch’s release.

National Students Federation Punjab (NSF) Vice-President Mohammad Babar said although there is a democratic government, the situation in Balochistan remains unchanged.

“The agencies are currently kidnapping Baloch youngsters, but it won’t be long before they do the same in Punjab because it has become their habit to kidnap and torture civilians,” he said.

NSF Punjab General Secretary Alia Amirali said declaring BSO-Azad a ‘terrorist organisation’ showed that the state had no tolerance for democratic politics.

“If Baloch students and political workers continue to be abducted by agencies in broad daylight, and then ‘returned’ in the form of mutilated bodies, the Pakistani state will have only itself to blame for the consequences – which will be no less severe than the events of 1971,” she said.

Asfandyar, a student from Waziristan who studies International Relations at Quaid-i-Azam University, told Dawn that many youngsters had been kidnapped from Waziristan.

“Unfortunately, the people of Waziristan have been living in a black hole which mediapersons cannot enter. Nobody can speak for their rights because so far the government has not given any right to the people of the tribal areas,” he said.

AWP Secretary-General Shehek Sattar said as many as 20,000 individuals were missing in Balochistan, but the federal and provincial governments were unwilling to talk about them.

“Even civil society and human rights activists do not participate in the protest because they cannot face the pressure of the military establishment. We will continue our struggle against enforced abductions,” he said.

Published in Dawn, May 17th, 2014