ISLAMABAD: Authorities have banned all public gatherings in Pakistan’s southern port city of Karachi, the commissioner’s office announced on Monday, ahead of a protest by the Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC) rights group.
The BYC announced a demonstration outside the Karachi Press Club (KPC) against the detention of its leader, Dr. Mahrang Baloch, and some other members who were arrested last week at a protest camp in Quetta, the capital of Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan province.
Dr. Baloch, one of Pakistan’s most prominent human rights advocates, has long campaigned for the ethnic Baloch people, many of whom say they have been targeted by authorities with harassment, enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings. Authorities deny these claims.
The Karachi commissioner’s office said senior police officials in Karachi had requested for the ban on public gatherings in the city in view of the “prevailing law and order situation” and to protect lives of general public.
“Syed Hassan Naqvi, Commissioner Karachi Division, hereby impose a complete ban on any type of protests, demonstrations, sit-ins, rallies and assembly of more than five persons with the Karachi Division,” Naqvi’s office said in a notification.
A number of BYC supporters tried to reach the KPC but they were intercepted by police, local media reported on Monday. The BYC protest was scheduled for 4pm in Karachi, while the group had also organized a protest in Quetta, where three protesters had died following a pre-dawn raid by police last week. Both sides blamed each other for the deaths.
Dr. Baloch and other protesters have been charged with terrorism, sedition and murder, according to the police charge sheet. On Sunday, Mary Lawlor, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights defenders, said she was “very concerned” at Baloch’s arrest.
Pakistan has been battling a separatist insurgency in Balochistan for decades, where militants target state forces and foreign nationals in the mineral-rich southwestern province bordering Afghanistan and Iran.
Earlier this month, the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) separatist group launched a dramatic train siege that officials said ended in around 60 deaths, half of whom were separatists behind the assault.
