ICC Note:
Over the last week, five human rights activists in Pakistan have disappeared under suspicious circumstances. Many believe the forced disappearances are being committed by Pakistan’s own government or terrorist groups to silence activists who stand against the country’s continued march towards religious radicalization. Will more human rights activists in Pakistan continue to disappear?
01/16/2017 Pakistan (Asia News) – In Pakistan another secular activist, critic of religious extremism and violent fringes present in political and military circles has disappeared. Samar Abbas, 54, president of the Civil Progressive Alliance Pakistan (CPAP) is the fifth activist to have disappeared into thin air, after the same fate befell a famous university professor and three bloggers last week. Many now fear the security forces and terrorism are behind the mysterious disappearances.
Syed Talib Abbas, secretary general of CPAP, reports that the activist has disappeared while on his way from Karachi to Islamabad for a business trip. “The family – reports – received news of him until last Saturday [January 7], but then lost all contact and his phone is disconnected.”
The activist Mona Aurangzeb believes that “the forced disappearance of members of the intellectual class of Punjab is an alarming trend. The state is giving the impression that no matter who you are: if you raise your voice or create problems, you have to pay the price. ”
The head of the Alliance is the latest in a series of mysterious disappearances. Before him, on January 6 Salman Haider, a well-known poet who teaches at Fatima Jinnah Women’s University in Rawalpindi disappeared in Islamabad.
Two days earlier in Lahore cousins ​​Waqas Goraya and Aasim Saeed went missing, both bloggers. Finally, on January 7 the blogger Ahmed Raza Naseer, who suffers from polio also went missing, perhaps kidnapped while he was in his Skeikhupura shop, near Lahore.
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