The move for the panel was launched in Sweden by pro-Independence Baloch radio producer Samundar Askani.
An international panel is being launched in Sweden to help rescue Baloch victims of enforced disappearances whose lives are in peril in the custody of Pakistan's Military Intelligence and its sister Inter-Services Intelligence in southwestern Balochistan
The panel is being formed on an urgent basis in the backdrop of the alleged killing of half dozen Baloch victims of enforced disappearances within the last two weeks.
The victims are freedom activists who are ethnic Baloch and want the Independence of their homeland, named after theim, from what they call is Pakistan's neocolonialist yoke.
The move for the panel was launched in Sweden by pro-Independence Baloch radio producer Samundar Askani.
"I was contacted by family members of one of the missing persons Zakir Majeed, who said Baloch living in the West must rise to the occasion and help save the victims of enforced disappearances," Askani said on phone from Stockholm, Sweden. Askani and compatriot Masood Baloch run the Gwank Radio that broadcasts breaking news stories about Balochistan's liberation struggle.
The main criteria for inclusion in the panel is that all members must agree on a single point that the issue of disappearances can only be solved through independence of Balochistan from Pakistan.
A co-founder of the panel is Faiz Baluch, who was arrested along with Balochistan politico Hyrbyair Marri on terrorism charges in London, and kept at the maximum security Belmarsh prison. The two were exonerated last year.
A number of leading Baloch activists and intellectual from multiple nations -- are being mentioned for what is most likely to be named the International Panel Against Enforced Disappearances in Balochistan.
Two well-known political names on the international panel are those of Kachkol Ali Advocate, a former fisheries minister from Balochistan who is now in self-exile in Norway, and former senator Sanaullah Baloch, who has been involved with international outreach about the Balochistan crisis in Brussels and Geneva.
Name of a highly respected Baloch writer, Hafeez Hassanabadi, has also been proposed for the panel. He is an estranged uncle of former Sanaullah Baloch; the uncle and nephew are at odds and engaged in behind the scenes allegations campaign against one another.
From the United States, the name being proposed is that of Laurie Deamer, an activist of the American Friends of Balochistan. The American woman from Philadelphia has been associated with the Balochistan liberation struggle for two years now and has spoken at events in Washington DC and Geneva.
From Canada the names of four prominent activists are slated for inclusion in the panel. One of them is Baloch poet and intellectual Dr. Zaffar Baloch, who is widely respected all over the world for political insight; a second name is that of Sakura Saunders who leads an international campaign against global giant, Barrick Gold. A third name is that of Aziz Baloch, a lifelong member of the radical Balochistan National Movement. A fourth name is that of analyst and Canadian TV commentator Imtiaz Baloch.
Mehran Baluch, Balochistan peoples representative at the U.N. Human Rights Council and son of legendary Balochistan leader Nawab Khair Bakhsh Marri, and Noordin Mengal, the youngest international activist in Geneva and London, may also be requested to join the panel. Baluch is an uncle of Mengal and the two are based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
The panel will mostly correspond with the United Nations Working Group on Involuntary and Enforced Disappearances, International Criminal Court, European Commission on Human Rights and other international non-profits and agencies responsible for helping the victims of enforced disappearances.
Under U.N. definition enforced disappearance is a crime against humanity, though Pakistan and some other Muslim states are trying to dilute the language against the perpetrators.
Family members of Zakir Majeed, who have been on hunger strike for nearly three months now.
Daily Tawar
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Ahmar Mustikhan is an Examiner from Baltimore. You can see Ahmar's articles at:
http://www.Examiner.com/x-63166-Baltimore-Foreign-Policy-Examiner
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