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Recovering missing persons: Baloch women resolve to continue protest

By Mohammad Zafar

Reposted from Express Tribune | September 20, 2012 Recovering missing persons: Baloch women resolve to continue protest
Also see:Post UN visit: Agencies threatening to kill chairman and members of our organisation: VBMP;
Also see: UN Team on Missing Persons Concludes Pakistan Visit;
Also see: The News: UN team on missing persons arrives;
Also see DailyTimes.com.pk's Arrival of UN mission sparks outcry in National Assembly;
Express Tribune's Enforced disappearances: UN team visit causes panic among MPs;
DailyTimes.com.pk's A UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID) mission

Baloch protest missing relatives
Female Baloch protesting the enforced disappearances and killings of their relatives and family members threatened

QUETTA: Snubbing allegations and threats by armed organisation Tehreek-e-Nifaz-e-Aman Balochistan, female relatives of the missing persons on Wednesday declared that they will not back down from protesting and will continue the hunger-strike camp for the recovery of their loved ones.

Addressing a press conference at the hunger strike camp, female relatives of the missing Baloch persons rejected Nifaz-e-Aman's objection over Baloch women raising their voices to recover their missing family members.

"Some narrow-minded people like Ghazi Khan (spokesperson for Nifaz-e-Aman) want to impose outdated traditions on the Baloch society. These are tactics of the forces and not the Baloch culture," the protestors said.

Snubbing the organisation's tactics to intimidate the relatives, they said that women had a positive role to play in society. "Baloch women continue to play their role to highlight the atrocities inflicted upon their brothers," they said.

Expressing their resolve, the women said they were prepared to go register their protest anywhere in the world and not just the Quetta Press Club.

They deeply resented the "contemptuous words" used against them by Ghazi, alleging that Ghazi's party was complicit with the security forces who picked up their loved ones and were now resenting their efforts to recover them.

"We will not be scared by any threats," they said.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 20th, 2012.