The Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC) said on Saturday it would observe Jan. 25 as “Baloch Genocide Remembrance Day” and urged Baloch people worldwide to hold events highlighting what it says are decades of violence, enforced disappearances and repression in Balochistan.
In a statement, the group said “genocide was not limited to mass killings but could also be a slow, systematic and silent process that erodes a people’s identity and way of life.”
It said people targeted because of their identity faced killings, enforced disappearances, denial of healthcare, economic exploitation and psychological harm.
The BYC said the violence against Baloch people began when they were first targeted because of their identity and has continued through military operations and what it called structural deprivation. It said repression had intensified in recent years, including against women and children.
The group linked the date to Jan. 25, 2014, when more than 100 mutilated bodies of forcibly disappeared Baloch youths were recovered from a mass grave in the Tootak area of Balochistan.
It said the remembrance day was first formally designated at a gathering in January 2024 in Quetta.
Last year, the group said, a major event for “Baloch Genocide Remembrance Day” in Dalbandin faced restrictions, including harassment of participants, disruption of communications and the filing of cases against organizers.
The group said the state had entered what it called a “dark phase of fascism”, with public leaders jailed, peaceful gatherings restricted and the pace of killings and disappearances increasing.
The BYC called on Baloch people in Balochistan and abroad to organize protests, seminars, cultural events and media campaigns on Jan. 25, and to engage diplomats, activists and journalists.
The group said awareness materials would be distributed through its channels and that local units had been told to document cases of what it describes as genocide and remain in contact with affected families.