CrisisBalochistan | November 30, 2011
Also see bygwaah.com: For more details of extrajudicial killings and abductions

photo: Ehsan Arjemandi, extrajudically abducted in Pakistan on August 7, 2009

By Mohammad M. Arjemandi

The below letters of appeal were written by Mohammad Arjemandi to Barry B. White, U.S. Ambassador to Norway, and President Barak Obama. Mr. Arjemandi is writing on behalf of his brother Ehsan, who was abducted by Pakistan's security forces in front of many witnesses on August 7, 2009, and has been missing ever since.

From: MOHAMMAD MOOSA ARJEMANDI
Ã…SLANDHELLINGA 187
1274 OSLO
NORWAY
TEL.: +47 92837502 & +47 40987742
Email.: mohammad.arjemandi@yahoo.com

To: HIS EXCELLENCY BARRY B. WHITE

THE RESPECTED AMBASSADOR OF THE UNITED STATES TO THE KINGDOM OF NORWAY.

Dear sir,

I, the undersigned, humbly bring your attention to the following:

I am a Norwegian national who came originally from the Iranian part of occupied Balochistan to Norway in 1987 as a political refugee, through UNHCR.

I, as a Baloch, because of my political activities against the brutality and oppression of the Iranian religious regime, was forced to flee the country in order to save my life in 1984, and ended up here in Norway.

My whole family was under constant pressure from the Islamic regime, so my mother and younger brother joined me in July 1990. But my father, due to circumstances, could not leave the country. Nor could he get permission to leave the country for treatment when he was later diagnosed with cancer. Because of his illness from cancer, he passed away on the 19th of February, 1994.

When my brother joined me in Norway, he had just turned 15 years old. So, the rest of his youth was spent here in Norway. Living in Norway could not cut our ties to our beloved mother land. We followed the situation from the outside, til the brutal terrorist attacks happened on 9/11. Prior to that, the Pakistani regime of former military dictator General Parviz Musharaf had begun brutalizing the Baloch nationalists and suppressing and killing the Baloch of Balochistan who sought their democratic rights.

9/11 was a gift for General Musharaf and Pakistan. It allowed them to act against the Baloch by calling them terrorists. In the shadow of the war against terror, General Musharaf killed and displaced almost 300,000 people. He did not even allow internally displaced people to be registered at any organization. Even today, these people are displaced and none of them registered. He also did not allow any aid organizations to go to Balochistan to distribute food and other basic needs. Regarding this claim, your excellency can approach Norway's former Ambassador to Pakistan, Mr. Kanavin, who said to me that he had personally asked General Musharaf to let Norwegian Folkehjelp travel there to distribute food and some medicine. His appeal was rejected and he was told we do not need these people, let them die!!! Yes, this is the attitude of Pakistan towards the Baloch and Balochistan.

Sir, I am appealing to you, as I did to your respected president of the United States, for help in recovering my beloved younger brother, who was kidnapped by Pakistani agencies on the 7th of August, 2009, at Zero Point, close to the border of Sindh and Balochistan. My brother traveled there to visit relatives. On his way back, he was picked up by Pakistani agencies, in the same manner as those agencies pick up any Baloch political activist.

Til today, we have no news of his whereabouts!!! Therefore I ask for your and your government's help in locating my brother, learning what he is blamed for and why they have prevented his appearance in court or denied him justice. Our Norwegian government and Embassy in Islamabad have not succeeded in getting any news about him.

But since your government and army have good relations with the Pakistanis, perhaps you can help us. To the best of my knowledge, my brother has done nothing against Pakistan, except having sympathy for his brethren in Balochistan.

You were able to free Raymond Davis, who in his defense had killed two Pakistanis. So, if the good will is there, you may save the life of a friend of the US--a father, a son, a brother and an innocent human being--from certain death.

I, back in September and October 2009, contacted your Embassy and was promised by a Ms. Cherry in the political section that she would ask her superiors for help. Later, when I had not heard from her, I learned she had been transferred somewhere else.

So now I ask--I humbly appeal to you and the respected president of the United States of America for help.

I have written a personal letter to your president and am trying to send it to him through your embassy. I hope your embassy will help to convey my letter to the president. I appeal for the life my only brother.

We, the family, are so desperate and do not know where we can turn to seek help. I've got to find my brother and the United States may be the only state that can help--if there is a will to save an innocent life.

Sir, my brother's name is Ehsan Arjemandi. Born June 30, 1974. He is 15 years junior to me. He traveled to Pakistan with a Norwegian passport and with a valid Pakistan visa, which was issued by the Pakistani embassy here in Oslo on the 26th of July, 2009. He traveled almost the same day that he received his visa to Pakistan.

Sir, if there is a need for further information, I am available always at my telephone numbers, which appear in this letter.

Waiting to hear from you as soon as possible.

With best regards,

Mohammad M. Arjemandi,

Oslo, 29th Nov. 2011

* * *

From: MOHAMMAD MOOSA ARJEMANDI
Ã…SLANDHELLINGA 187
1274 OSLO
NORWAY
TEL.: + 47 92837502 & + 47 40987742
Email: mohammad.arjemandi@yahoo.com

TO: YOUR EXCELLENCY, MR. BARAK H. OBAMA
PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERCIA

VIA THE EMBASSY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, OSLO, NORWAY.

Dear Sir, it may seem unusual for somebody to write to your excellency in this way, but Sir, I, we--the whole family--have encountered a problem of life and death and are forced to seek your kind help, which I will try to explain below:

Sir, I, the undersigned, a Norwegian national, originally came to Norway as a political refugee with the help of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees after fleeing the oppression of the dictatorial, religious regime of Iran in Iranian-occupied Balochistan in 1987.

Back in Iran, my family was under constant pressure from the Iranian regime, so my mother and younger brother, Ehsan Arjemandi, when he was just 15 years old, joined me here in Norway on 30th July 1990.

My father never could leave Iran, and did not even receive permission to the leave the country for cancer treatment. He later passed away from cancer on 19th Feb. 1994.

With the events of 9/11, and under pressure, Pakistan became an ally and partner of the United States. When Pakistan felt comfortable with this relationship, and in the shadow of this partnership, she began suppressing and oppressing the Baloch people in the eastern part of Balochistan, which was occupied by Pakistan back in April 1948, after Balochistan became independent on 12th August 1947!!!

This oppression and brutalizing of the Baloch people continues today, which the Baloch nation feels is going on with the blessings of the United States and its allies. We, the diaspora Baloch, here in Norway and other countries, had nothing to do with either opposition to Pakistani oppression or with the Baloch resistance. We just had sympathy for the Baloch.

My younger brother, Ehsan, for whom I am seeking your help, and I, along with other Baloch from Scandinavia, organized a protest demonstration against the former military ruler of Pakistan's visit to Norway in January 2006. All participants were photographed and registered by Pakistani intelligence agents who accompanied President Musharaf.

We thought this demonstration was a peaceful demonstration in a democratic society and so we felt we had nothing to be worried about. My brother traveled to Pakistani Balochistan to visit relatives in the Makuran area of Balochistan on 26th July 2009.

My brother's health situation deteriorated in Mand, close to the Iranian border. When he contacted me, I advised him to return as soon as possible.

Ehsan booked a ticket with a bus company on the afternoon 6th August 2009. When the bus reached an area called Zero Point, near the borders of Sind and Balochistan, the bus was stopped by several cars that carried both military and plainclothes personnel. They approached directly my brother and took him with them!!! Since 7th August, 2009, nobody has either heard of or seen him!!!

I had been to your embassy in 2009 here in Oslo to seek their help for recovering my brother. Embassy personnel I came in contact with were great, showed understanding and promised to help us. In all these years, Norway's government has not been successful because Pakistan does not admit publicly that she has arrested, abducted or taken Ehsan into custody. Even though Pakistan's Interior Minister Rehman Malik, back in July 2010, acknowledged in an interview with a Norwegian reporter that they had arrested my brother because traveling with fake documents!!! This acknowledgement went nowhere because, as we feel, Malik was threatened by all-powerful army personnel, and told he should not reveal such information prior to their orders!!!

As you may know, Sir, since July 2010, Pakistan has thrown, tortured, and brutilized, the bullet-riddled bodies of 350 Baloch youth, political activists, lawyers, doctors and people from all walks of life in Pakistani Balochistan. International humanitarian organizations' appeals to the Pakistani government have gone unheard!!!

It is very strange that human rights abuses in Yeman, Libya, Syria and even Iran and other places come out and are heard, but when it comes to Balochistan, nobody cares about it!!!

Sir, we have documented 1,500 cases of persons being abducted by Pakistani intelligence agencies. As mentioned earlier, Sir, a full-scale genocide is going on in Balochistan, similar to the one committed by the Pakistani army back in 1971 against the Bengali people in the middle of their struggle for independence!!!

But Bangladesh had a population of over 80 million at that time. In the case of Balochistan, its population hardly constitutes 10 million. And Balochistan's educated people are just 2%!!! Yes Sir, you read right. Thanks to Pakistani and Irani colonialism against Baloch and Balochistan, the rate of education is just at 2%. And Pakistan had already concluded, along with Iran, that Balochistan will one day seek independence. In order to prevent this from happening, they planned that Balochistan should not get any form of development, education, industry, infrastucture and so on. Balochistan, with all its natural wealth, is the poorest and most backward region Pakistan and Iran.

The Baloch people, unlike her neighbors, are very secular and free-minded people. For this reason, Pakistan has begun sending Islamic missionaries to Balochistan in order to Talibanize her!!!

Sir, this letter is not just written for only my brother Ehsan Arjemandi, but for all 13,000 Baloch political prisoners, of which 1,500 persons are documented.

Why are others not documented? Because the Pakistani army and its agencies have threatened the families of the victims, warning them to remain silent or they will kill and dump their bodies as they have done to the others who are tortured and brutalized with bullets to their heads and chests and dumped in deserted areas of Balochistan.

Sir, the Baloch people are waiting for and expecting the United states to come to save them from certain death by the Pakistani army and its spy agencies, as the US did with Bosnia Herzegovina's Muslims who faced certain death at the hands of the Serbian facists.

But this time the slaughter is being done by Muslims against Muslims and in the name of Islam, Sir!!!

Each hour that passes may be the last for some unfortunate, freedom seeker of Balochistan who sits in a Pakistani torture cell.

Sir, as one who can help to stop this killing, as a human being and the commander of the strongest army in the world, who happens to be in partnership with this brutal army and state, have a historical duty to stop this genocide and save the lives of thousands of Baloch political prisoners.

The Baloch nation sees herself a natural partner of the United States in its fight against terror because the Baloch are victims of the very same forces who committed 9/11.

Sir, I am trying to send this appeal, this humanitarian appeal, on behalf of me, our families and all other Baloch families, whose loved ones are in the torture cells of the brutal army of Pakistan. Sir, my brother was born on 30th June, 1974. He is young, but he is suffering from heart disease, thyroid gland disorder (which needs 4 times daily medication: Astam), Lumbal columna disorder with extrem pain, high BP and diabetes.

I hope my brother has survived in this situation. My poor elderly mother has lost her mind and is very sick, just says Ehsan and Ehsan--nothing else.

Ehsan has three children. Two daughters ages 12 and 10, and a boy of six. Two of these children suffer Epilepsy. His oldest daughter of 12 is suffering Epilepsy grand mal, and his son suffers the same illness to a minor degree. Ehsan's abduction has turned our lives upside down. This arrest has ruined me and my family because of the traveling required to find somebody who may help me get news of my brother!!!

Sir, just one telephone call to your staff may help save the life of a father, a brother, a son and a cousin who cared about all of them. And we will thank you and the United States. Ehsan had visited the US several times and was impressed by your free and wealthy society.

Dear Sir, all of us again appeal to your excellency for help. And we are sure, if you wish to, that you can save the life of my brother who is a friend of the United States of America.

Yours sincerely,

Mohammad M. Arjemandi,
Oslo, 29th November 2011