Published Jul 29, 2012 03:50am
“Baba Jan! Baba Jan! Baba Jan ko raha karo!” A diverse group of roughly
100 protesters chanted at a rally, as they marched all the way from Aabpara
Chowk to the Islamabad Press Club on July 6 and demanded for the release of
Baba Jan.
The protesters –
members of the Labour Party Pakistan (LPP), Progressive Youth Front Lahore,
National Trade Union Federation, Carpet Workers Union, International
Socialists, and Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf (PTI) – were marching to demand justice
for Baba Jan, an LPP activist who had been detained and repeatedly tortured by
the Pakistani government since the previous year.
The Baba Jan saga
It all began in Gilgit-Baltistan, January 2010, when a climate-change
induced a devastating mountain landslide into the Hunza River, causing the
spontaneous formation of a lake, now known as Attabad Lake.
Hundreds of
Gilgit-Baltistan villages were swept along with the crumbling mountain, and
submerged into Hunza River, leaving over 1,000 displaced, with no access to the
rest of Pakistan because of the damage done to the Karakoram Highway.
According to The
Free Baba Jan Campaign, which consists of many LPP members, after the formation
of Attabad Lake, it was Baba Jan who led the Gilgit-Baltistan community,
lobbying the government to compensate the displaced people of the valley and
solve their problems in the aftermath of the devastating landslide. He
organised protests that led to the Pakistani government’s final agreement to
compensate the displaced victims of the landslide.
Eventually, a list
of 457 families was compiled for compensation, but 25 families had yet to be
compensated by the government.
It is the struggle
for the rights of these 25 families that turned violent and led to the eventual
arrest of Baba Jan.
According to
activists involved in the movement, things took a dramatic turn on August 11,
2011 in Aliabad, when the police used violent means to disperse the protesters.
They began with a baton-charge but then progressed to release of tear gas,
finally opening fire at the crowd. Two unarmed protesters were killed – Afzal
Baig 22, and his father, Sher Ullah Baig as he was trying to retrieve Afzal’s
body. In the aftermath of these deaths, Baba Jan arrived to organise more
protests and put pressure on the police to investigate the Baig killings. But
campaigners for Baba Jan related that facing pressure; the police arrested Baba
Jan and his fellow activists instead and charged them for violating Pakistan’s
Anti-Terrorism Act.
A Labour Party
Pakistan press release states that Baba Jan has been treated brutally in jail
and tortured cruelly: “Baba Jan was subjected to torture for three to four
hours at a stretch: beaten with sticks, and his feet crushed under heavy boots
for three days in a row. He was denied treatment for his many injuries, despite
the orders of the court.”
Since then, many
activists have been released on bail, but five men remain. Including Baba Jan,
these five have become known as the Hunza Five. Two out of the five activists,
Rashid Minhas and Amir Ali, were released on bail on June 27, but the other
three – Iftikhar Hussain, Ameer Khan, and Baba Jan – remain in prison.
Missing spotlight
Why is Baba Jan’s
case, an example of human rights violation, not getting picked up by mainstream
media? To date, only two media organisations have consistently covered Mr Jan’s
case and a vast majority of other reports that are coming out on the issue are
tagged as biased since they come from sources like local newspapers in
Gilgit-Baltistan or the Pamir Times which is a not-for-profit online “news and
views blog” initiated by the youth of Gilgit.
For Aman Kariapper,
a member of the LPP, the reason for media overlooking Baba Jan is “the lack of
organisation and other weaknesses of Left parties in general, and specifically
in the Labour Party, as well as a corporate media ‘system’ that has an agenda
that diverges from the idea of projecting the voice of the oppressed”.
However, LPP
Spokesperson Farooq Tariq explains that even though Baba Jan is not receiving
much media attention, “the case is getting more attention via social media like
Facebook, and international human rights organisations like Amnesty
International and the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.”
Zohra Yousuf from
the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan also explains that because the issue is
based in the marginalised Gilgit-Baltistan, and Pakistan is currently facing
such a large number of problems, Baba Jan’s case is continuously overshadowed
by other pressing issues, and pushed back.
Baba Jan, a ‘terrorist’
For those following the case, the biggest irony is that Baba Jan has
been arrested under Pakistan’s Anti-Terrorism Act.
A young activist
for Baba Jan expressed his anger eloquently: “It is shameful how the government
is using the Anti-Terrorism Act against a Pakistani activist. The Act is being
misused systematically to redefine protesters as terrorists. ‘Terrorist’ is a
powerful word, and it certainly does not apply here.”
And the LPP in its
regular press releases strongly condemns such violation of due process and
human rights – especially on the alleged killing of the Baigs by the police.
Part of the problem
is of visibility. Another protester explained: “Because the injustice being
committed against Baba Jan is mostly evident in Islamabad only, the anger felt
by many other people all over the country does not get registered.”
On July 18, the
campaign to free Baba Jan stated that the Anti-Terrorism Court dismissed the
bail application on the basis that the court was never officially informed of
the ATA charges that were filed against Baba Jan on June 28 for rioting in
Gilgit Jail in late April.
The bail appeal
would normally wait for the joint investigation team (JIT) to complete its
report and submit it to the Anti-Terrorism Court but an LPP spokesman, Farooq
Tariq, stated that “Baba Jan and another activist, Iftikhar Hussain, were
abducted from Gilgit jail on July 20 by a JIT and are being tortured and kept
in illegal detention.”
And as the legal
team fights out its battles, the campaign plans to build the pressure. The
campaign’s next move is to begin a mass movement in Gilgit-Baltistan for the
release of the Hunza Five. But if this bout of campaigning would make it to
mainstream media, remains to be seen.
No comments:
Post a Comment