On December 26, 2018, Rashid Hussain Baloch was picked-up by the United Arab Emirates intelligence from Dubai and was reported to Pakistan. Since then he has vanished while Pakistan is denying his detention. According to February 20, 2019 statement issued by Amnesty International, “Emirati security forces detained Pakistani national Rashid Hussain Brohi without an arrest warrant. He has been held incommunicado since then. Emirati authorities have not disclosed his location, any cause for arrest, or any charges being raised against him. There are strong indications that Emirati officials are preparing to deport or extrajudicially render Rashid Hussain to Pakistan, where he was involved in Baloch activism prior to moving to the Emirates. There is reason to fear his life would be in danger if he were forcibly returned to Pakistan”.
According to a report published in The Balochistan Post on January 21, 2023:
Despite exhaustive attempts to seek justice through legal and constitutional channels, Rashid Hussain’s family claims to have seen no signs of justice being served. The Pakistani security agencies deny involvement in Rashid Hussain’s extradition, but Rashid Hussain’s mother affirms she possesses definitive evidence to the contrary.
As the five-year mark of her brother’s disappearance approaches, Fareeda Baloch expressed a sense of urgency and despair. She explained, “My brother was a voice for the oppressed, and today, more than ever, we need his voice”.
According to a report published in News Intervention:
The Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) of Pakistan reportedly tried to coerce the family of “missing” Rashid Hussain into signing a misleading and false statement regarding the “enforced disappearance” of Rashid Hussain from the United Arab Emirates. The family were reportedly locked up in a room and threatened that if they did not sign the statement, their loved ones will be hunted down and harmed.
According to the family members of Rashid Hussain, they were recently summoned to the Airport Police Station in Karachi by the Pakistani forces and pressurized to sign a false and misleading statement. The statement, concocted by the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) of Pakistan, declared that Rashid Hussain had not been forcibly disappeared in UAE – as all the available evidence shows – but rather sent back to Dalbandin, Balochistan, by the company that employed him. He had then gone “missing” in Dalbandin.
The family members said that they were locked up in a room and threatened that if they did not sign the statement, their loved ones will be hunted down from “wherever they are” and harmed. Even when the family members were released, a vehicle of the Pakistani forces kept following them.
The family members have presented the mendacious statement which was supposed to be signed by the mother of “missing” Rashid Hussain. The contrived statement reads on behalf of Rashid Hussain’s mother that her son had gone missing in Dalbandin – and not in UAE – and that her lawyer had “accidentally” written Karachi instead of Dalbandin due to her “disfluency” in Urdu.
The statement also declares on behalf of Rashid Hussain’s mother that she had given this same statement before the missing person commission earlier.
The family members have claimed that they have substantial evidence in their possession to prove that Rashid Hussain had been arrested in UAE and subsequently extradited at the behest of Pakistan. But the behavior of Pakistani authorities shows that they want to whitewash his arrest in a veneer of false accusations.
The family members added that they are alarmed after Monday’s incident that the life of Rashid Hussain might be in danger. Their apprehension is not misplaced: Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) of Pakistan recently killed 5 Baloch missing persons in a fake encounter, labelling them as ‘terrorists.’
The family members have repudiated the statement, saying that they demand the safe recovery of Rashid Hussain.
Who is Rashid Hussain?
Rashid Hussain is a Baloch human rights activist who was living in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as a laborer. He was arrested on 26 December 2018, by the Emirati intelligence, kept in confinement for six months and then deported to Pakistan in July of 2019. In April 2020, the counter-terrorism court in Karachi incriminated him for the Chinese consulate attack of November 2018 and declared him a “fugitive”.
Since his disappearance, Rashid Hussain’s family has been struggling for his safe recovery. His family members have knocked on many doors in search of their loved one but to no avail. Hussain’s mother and his young niece Mahzeb Shafiq were also among the families of the Baloch missing persons who staged a sit-in at Islamabad earlier in February, demanding the release of their missing family members.
According to media reports, Rashid Hussain Baloch is being held in secret torture cells run by Pakistan Armed Forces solely for raising his voice for justice and freedom for his people.
Pakistan has been committing war crimes in Balochistan for the past two decades, with abductions and extrajudicial killings continuing to this day.
Previously only men were being abducted, but now women are also being abducted on false charges.
The Baloch nation is being subjected to systematic genocide by Pakistan. Anyone who speaks up for their rights and freedom is abducted, tortured, and killed with their mutilated bodies being dumped on streets and deserted areas.
