Save Rashid Hussain Baloch

By Fateh Jan Baloch

On 26 December 2018, the UAE intelligence agencies have arrested and taken to an undisclosed location the 23-year-old Baloch student and social media activist Rashid Hussain Baloch while he was on his way from Sharjah to Dubai. The UAE police expressed cluelessness about his whereabouts and formally registered the FIR of his ‘disappearance’ at the request of his family.

A few days later more than a dozen intelligence security officers brought Rashid Hussain to his apartment and demand from his family to hand over his passport. This demand for the passport was followed by intimidating phone calls to his family. People called from withheld numbers and threatened the family about Rashid’s passport.

However, when Rashid Hussain’s family have asked about his whereabouts and well-being, they did not get any satisfactory reply from the UAE authorities. The family then, according to the law of UAE, hired a lawyer and gave him the power of attorney to find out if there were any charge/allegations against Rashid Hussain. The lawyer has contacted all government institution and found that there is no case against Mr Hussain. That means his disappearance is unlawful.

Since Rashid is a well known social media activist and has been very active in highlighting Human Right violations in Balochistan on social media. Pakistani forces have already killed Rashid Hussain’s cousin Majeed Zehri and his uncle Haji Mohammad Ramzan Zehri (Majeed’s father). Due to which Rashid Hussain could not complete his education in Balochistan and had to flee to UAE where he has been living on work permit visa and working from past two years.

The Baloch, Pashtun, Sindhi and Shia activists have been campaigning on social media against Rashid Hussain’s enforced-disappearance from past many days. However, on Tuesday the Pakistan media has reported that Rashid Hussain had been arrested in Sharjah and he’s allegedly one of the ‘Key facilitators’ of the attack on Chinese Consulate in Karachi on 23 November 2018. There is no doubt that the Pakistani media and state wants to mislead the world through such allegations.

The disappearance of Rashid Hussain and misleading reports by Pakistani media after one month of his abduction confirms the concerns of social media activists that if Rashid is forcibly deported to Pakistan, he will also be killed like other members of his family.

It is the responsibility of all Human Rights organisations, freeborn people around the world and Human Rights activists to appeal the government of United Arab Emirates that UAE must not succumb to the lies and misleading reports by Pakistan and its media. Deporting Rashid Hussain to Pakistan would be deliberately pushing him into the jaws of death. Hence, every individual must play his/her role to save the life of Rashid Hussain Baloch.