The Baloch National Movement (BNM) held a protest rally in Geneva against enforced disappearances, human rights violations, extrajudicial killings and the sentencing of political activists in false cases in Balochistan.
Participants in the protest rally gathered at the “Broken Chair” outside the United Nations office, where speakers called for international attention to the human rights situation in Balochistan as well as Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Kashmir. The protest was part of the BNM’s September 2026 Geneva campaign, which aimed to highlight the Balochistan issue internationally. With the participation of representatives of nations subjugated under Pakistani rule, the BNM’s international campaign was not limited to Balochistan; with representatives of the Sindhi, Pashtun, Gilgit-Baltistan and Kashmiri peoples taking part, it emerged as a joint campaign of the region’s subjugated nations.
During the BNM’s three-day special campaign in Geneva, BNM representatives took part in protests by Pashtuns and Sindhis, expressed sympathy with them and called a joint struggle on the point of freedom the path to liberation.
The BNM protest in Geneva was addressed by BNM chairman Dr Naseem Baloch, foreign secretary Faheem Baloch, central junior joint secretary Hassan Dost Baloch, foreign department focal person Hakeem Baloch, Voice for Missing Persons Sindh Europe chapter coordinator Sarang Haider, human rights activist Noor Maryam Kanwar and Kamran Jatoi of the World Sindhi Congress.
The speakers said people from different parts of the world have come to Geneva to express solidarity with mothers who have been waiting for years for the return of their forcibly disappeared children.
According to them, these mothers “do not lock their doors and cannot sleep properly” because they are waiting for their sons and daughters.
The speakers said fathers hold back their tears in front of others over the disappearance of their sons, but “when they sit alone they weep deeply and remember their children.”
They said sisters too do not eat and drink normally because their brothers are in “cells of darkness and torture”.
The speakers said crimes against humanity continue in Balochistan, making no distinction of age or gender.
According to them, “thousands of people are being abducted, thousands are being killed and bodies are being dumped on the roads.”
They said the problem is not limited to the Baloch; Pashtuns, Sindhis and Kashmiris are also affected by the situation.
“We have to unite. We have to bring our voices together. Pashtuns, Baloch, Sindhis are all together. Gilgit-Baltistan, Sindh, Pakhtunkhwa or Balochistan, we are all oppressed and we are all suffering.”
The speakers said Balochistan has been “a land of sorrow for decades”, and according to them human rights violations have continued since 1948, carrying on through the periods of 1962, 1973 and 2006.
They said thousands of Baloch have been victims of enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings.
In their words, “Balochistan has been turned into a military cantonment and all the freedoms and legal rights of the local people have been taken away.”
The speakers also mentioned enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings in Sindh and Pakhtunkhwa.
They said that over the past decades “more than 3,500 enforced disappearances and more than 100 extrajudicial killings have been reported” in Sindh, while “more than 100 nationalist activists are still forcibly disappeared, and the number of ordinary citizens is four times higher.”
The protesters and speakers demanded that the United Nations intervene in Balochistan, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Kashmir and the Saraiki Waseb and send an independent fact-finding mission.
They said the issue of enforced disappearances and human rights violations is no longer limited to Balochistan but has spread to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Kashmir and other major cities of the region.
The speakers said the people of united India won freedom from the British colonial system in the 1940s, but now “we are forced to live under a new form of the same colonialism.”
Citing Frantz Fanon, the speakers described opportunists and colonial intellectuals as occupiers of life.
They said: “They have taken away the right to live, and the right to die in peace and dignity too.”
According to the speakers, after some people are killed their bodies are not handed over to their families, and families are pressured into signing terrifying agreements.
They said: “The terrifying everyday reality is not talked about enough.”
The speakers said not only Baloch, Pashtun and Sindhi activists but also the lawyers who fight their cases are being targeted.
Citing Imaan Mazari and her husband Hadi Chattha, they said they are being harassed because they took up the cases of families of forcibly disappeared Baloch and Pashtuns.
The speakers said: “There is no rule of law in Pakistan. There, might is right, and the might is the Pakistani army.”
They also cited social activist Sabeen Mahmud, saying she “was killed only because she held a session with the families of the forcibly disappeared. Half an hour later she was shot in Karachi.”
The speakers said the families of activists such as Mahrang, Bebo, Gulzadi, Bebarg and Sibghatullah are also subjected to collective punishment; they are harassed, suppressed and sometimes even killed.
At the end of the protest, the speakers again demanded immediate and meaningful action by the United Nations in Balochistan.
They said the United Nations should carry out an independent investigation and not ignore the issue of enforced disappearances, collective punishment and pressure on affected families.
Speakers from Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and other regions taking part in the protest called the situation in Balochistan a shared human rights issue, saying the voices of affected nations and families must be heard internationally.
