World Sindhi Congress rallies in US for release of disappeared workers in Pakistan

June 30: The World Sindhi Congress (WSC) has organised public demonstrations in three cities of the United States (US)–Houston, New York and Los Angeles –against enforced disappearances in Pakistan’s Sindh province in front of the Pakistani Consulates.

The purpose of the demonstrations was to raise awareness amongst the American public about the practice of enforced disappearance perpetrated by the security agencies of Pakistan in Sindh province.

For many years, the enforced disappearances in Sindh have persisted; more than twelve hundred people belonging to different communities have gone missing.

There has been an upsurge in illegal detention of people in Sindh last year. Reportedly, since February 2017, around 170 people have been forcibly disappeared.

“Unfortunately, the enforced disappearances are being used as a tool to silence political dissent and to feed fear in people of particular ethnic backgrounds,” said Organizer of the WSC Dr Saghir Shaikh.

Members of the WSC and the Sindhi Association of North America (SANA) along with their families participated in the public protest.

“People are taken into custody in broad daylight much in the way of kidnapping; they are kept incommunicado for months and years,” said Farhan Kaghzi, “Security agencies operate with utmost impunity!” Kaghzi further lamented.

Dr Safdar Sarki, a US Citizens, who suffered two years of torture and detention in retired General Pervez Musharraf, spoke about the systematic abuse of Sindhi nationalist party workers and other human rights defenders, “While hundreds of them have been kidnapped, several dozens have been victims of extra-judicial killings.”

WSC prepared and presented a memo regarding the enforced disappearances to the Consulate General of New York and Houston.

The consulate staff in Los Angles, however, refused to take the memo.

Protesters demanded the Pakistan government to end human rights violation and release all those missing from Sindh, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa; if those missing are involved in crimes or anti-state -activities, they must be presented in courts of the law and be given a chance of fair trials which is their fundamental right.

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