July 12, 2010
Reposted from Baltimore Examiner | July 12, 2011 | Norway lawyer urges world community to bring M.I. and I.S.I. to justice
See also latest Amnesty International Reports | June 3, 2011 | Pakistan: Government must stop unlawful killings in Balochistan
February 23, 2011 | Pakistan: Balochistan atrocities continue to rise

Norwegian human rights lawyer Randi Spydevold

Spydevold said she had faced a brick-wall for one and half years now as she pursued the Pakistani authorities to release her client.

A prominent Norwegian lawyer has urged the international community to put pressure on Pakistan to bring the Inter-Services Intelligence and Military Intelligence to justice for their crimes against the people of Balochistan.

Randi Hagen Spydevold, Norwegian lawyer who is seeking justice for her compatriot Ehsan Arjemandi, was addressing "Teleconference: American Women on Balochistan Human Rights Situation" organized by the DC based American Friends of Balochistan.

The teleconference Sunday brought together American and Baloch women who shared ideas and thoughts on how to end the genocide in Occupied Balochistan. Kimberly Crichton, a senior writer with the Amnesty International based in Washington DC, Laurie Deamer form Pennsylvania and Jane Weisner from Massachusetts joined two Balochistan heroines Farzana Majeed of the Baloch Students Organization Azad from Khuzdar and Meher Jan of Baloch Women's Panel in Quetta.

Spydevold said if the Pakistan government fails to bring the I.S.I. and M.I. chiefs to justice then the international community must act on their own. Like Spydevold, observers around the world are surprised that no Pakistani general got the sack even though they were shielding Osama bin Laden near Pakistan's Westpoint, called the Pakistan Military Academy.

Spydevold said she had faced a brick-wall for one and half years now as she pursued the Pakistani authorities to release her client.

Spydevold, who is known all over Europe for her human rights work, said Pakistan must "ratify the human rights convention and other international conventions."

Farzana Majeed, whose brother Zakir Majeed was forcibly disappeared by the Military Intelligence on June 8, 2009, made an impassioned appeal to common Americans to come to the rescue of Baloch citizens who are facing a genocide and asked the U.S. government to use its influence at the United Nations to end the crimes against humanity in Balochistan.

In her talk, Meher Jan said the Baloch people fully support their resistance organizations: the Baloch Liberation Army, Baloch Liberation Front, Baloch United Liberation Front and Baloch Republican Army.

She reposed her full faith in the resistance leadership and described London-based Hyrbyair Marri as an international voice for the Baloch people.

Jane Weisner of the American Friends of Balochistan from Amherst, Mass., regretted that many Americans do not know that Balochistan was once a free country that was annexed at gun point by Pakistan.

"My conclusion to the question of human right violations against the Baloch people and Balochistan's independence is that the U.S. State Department doesn't see Balochistan as a country. The U.S. people do not recognize that Pakistan is systematically committing genocide against the Baloch people," she said.

Weisner said, "The human rights violations appear as Pakistani against Pakistani. It is imperative to educate the American public through the media that a genocide is occurring against the occupied independent country of Balochistan and the Baloch people by Pakistan's I.S.I. and military."

Spydevold said, "Pakistan has not ratified the Convention on Torture, and they reject any other country [wishing] to start [an] investigation to examine other violations of international conventions. This tells me that the political system or parties are not willing to handle human rights violation in their own country," she said. "The country is led by the military M.I .and I.S.I., and it seems like the law is absent for these organizations and their leaders."

Mehran Baluch, Balochistan representative at the U.N. Human Rights Council, who was traveling to Belgium to attend a meeting of the European Parliament, expressed his solidarity with the gathering.

Kimberly Crichton and Laurie Deamer assured they will do whatever possible to get justice for the people of Balochistan.

A number of A.F.B. members from different states in the U.S. attended the teleconference.

Samandar Askani of Radio Gwank, Sweden, helped with the organization of the teleconference.

Ruksana Langov, sister of Ghaffar Langov, refused to speak at the teleconference as she said the U.S. did not do anything to help safe the life of her brother whom the Pakistan Military Intelligence forcibly disappeared on December 11, 2009 from outside a Karachi hospital where he had taken his wife for treatment. His body was found from the coastal town of Gadani on July 1.

Langov was a close friend of Hyrbyair Marri.

Ahmar Mustikhan is a journalist of longstanding from Balochistan -- a Texas-sized stateless region divided among Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan.