Pakistan extended the detention of the most prominent rights activist of the Baloch minority for 30 days on Monday after she was charged with ‘terrorism’, ‘sedition’ and ‘murder’, her lawyer said.
Mahrang Baloch, 32, has long campaigned for the Baloch ethnic group, which claims it is targeted with harassment and extrajudicial killings.
She was detained on March 22 for 30 days but ‘the government has issued another notification ordering to detain her for 30 days more’, her lawyer Imran Baloch said.
A dozen UN experts called on Pakistan in March to immediately release Baloch rights defenders, including Mahrang, and to end the repression of their peaceful protests.
The judiciary declined to rule on her detention a week ago, effectively halting any further judicial appeal and placing the matter solely in the hands of the provincial government of Balochistan, which borders Iran and Afghanistan.
Mahrang took part in a sit-in protest in the provincial capital Quetta in March demanding the release of members of the Baloch Yakjehti Committee, a group she founded to organise protests.
Since 2009, Baloch protesters have gathered in the vast and mineral-rich province — where 70 per cent of the population lives in poverty — demanding justice for what they claim are extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, and arbitrary detentions.
Pakistani authorities reject these as ‘baseless allegations’.
Pakistan has been battling a separatist insurgency in Balochistan for decades, where militants target state forces and foreign nationals.
Separatists accusing outsiders of plundering the province’s natural resources launched a dramatic train siege in March in which officials said about 60 people were killed, half of whom were assailants.
Mahrang was barred from travelling to the United States last year to attend a TIME magazine ‘rising leaders’ awards gala.
