Islamabad, Oct 4 (IANS) Pakistan is turning abuses it has long used in Balochistan, such as enforced disappearances and detention without charge, against women who refuse to stay silent, from Baloch students to former Prime Minister Imran Khan's sisters, according to a media report.
"The method long associated with and justified by Pakistan's peripheral conflicts has now an entirely domestic political application," Italian journalist Francesca Marino wrote in an analysis for Parrhesia News.
The report said the clearest example came from Balochistan. On August 27, the provincial government declared nine women from Gwadar, Jiwani and Turbat "highly wanted" and offered rewards of up to Rs 1.5 million for them. It linked them to "Fitna al-Hindustan" but gave no verifiable evidence and no sign that they had been formally charged.
Before that, several women had allegedly disappeared. Safia Baloch, a 20-year-old student, was taken from Quetta. 17-year-old Aqsa vanished with her father in Khuzdar. Three other women were reportedly detained at a Frontier Corps checkpoint and have not been seen since.
"First women vanish; then the state explains why women should be feared," Marino wrote.
The report said the "Fitna al-Hindustan" label blurs the line between combatant, activist, lawyer, relative, and suspect. Under it, any protester can be called a facilitator and any missing woman a hidden militant.
The same method is now being used outside Balochistan, the report said. Imran Khan's sisters, Aleema Khan, Uzma Khan and Noreen Niazi, were given 30-day detention orders in Lahore ahead of a protest demanding their brother's release.
"They were not detained because a court had established that they had committed a crime. They were detained because the government feared what they might persuade others to do in the future," it said.
Human rights lawyer Imaan Mazari-Hazir, who represents families of the forcibly disappeared, was re-arrested with her husband only hours after the Supreme Court granted them bail.
"A court may order a prisoner released; the security apparatus will decide whether the order has any practical meaning," the report said.
--IANS
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