Baloch activist and Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC) leader Sammi Deen has said that Pakistan’s policies in Balochistan reflect a view of the Baloch people “not as a population but as an enemy,” and that this mindset underpins ongoing human rights abuses in the region.
In a statement, she said the state’s issue was “neither the insurgency, nor counterterrorism, nor the so-called angry Baloch”, arguing that the “real problem is the identity and existence of the Baloch.” She said this approach had resulted in the forcible disappearance or killing of Baloch men, women, elders and children.
Ms Baloch said the state’s counterterrorism narrative served as a “veil” to justify anti-Baloch policies, questioning how the enforced disappearance of “unarmed women, pregnant women and thirteen-year-old children” could be justified under any law.
She said that when concerns about “Baloch genocide” are raised, they are dismissed as false narratives, yet the scale of violations reported by families suggests that “no distinction remains between men, women, elders and children.”
She said that internationally recognized protections for civilians in conflict “do not exist” for the Baloch, adding that constitutional and legal guarantees had been reduced to “paper claims.”
The activist called on international human rights organizations to take urgent notice of what she described as enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings and wider policies being carried out against the Baloch population.