Journalist Shahid Qazi has said Balochistan now stands at a crossroads: on one side lies the continuation of repression and political conflict; on the other, a path of justice, dialogue and the Baloch nation’s right to decide its own political future.
He was speaking at the 12th Balochistan International Conference in Geneva, organised by the Baloch National Movement (BNM). The conference was dedicated to the struggle and thought of BNM’s martyred leader, Chairman Zubair Baloch.
Shahid Qazi, host of The Unmuted Voice and a former journalist with NBC News and ITV, said the Balochistan question had for a long time been presented only through a security lens, while its human and political dimensions could not be set aside.
He said that when students protest they are declared a threat; when Baloch families demand information about their forcibly missing loved ones they are viewed with suspicion; when Baloch students raise their voices they face abduction and torture; and when activists demand justice they are branded agents of the enemy.
He asked whether “an entire nation” could be treated as merely a security problem, and whether a mother’s grief, or a father’s search for a missing son, could be called a threat to national security.
These, he said, are not security questions. They are human-rights questions.
Shahid Qazi said enforced disappearance does not affect only one life; it plunges an entire family into lasting uncertainty and anguish.
Death, he said, brings unbearable grief, but enforced disappearance brings uncertainty. A mother waits, a father searches, a sister keeps looking towards the door, and a child grows up wondering when their father will come home.
He called it “the disappearance of an entire family’s happiness and peace.”
Every family, he said, has a right to answers about their loved one; every detainee is entitled to fair process under the law; every allegation should be independently investigated; and every victim should receive justice.
Turning to Balochistan’s natural resources, Shahid Qazi said the region is rich in minerals, gas and a highly important coastline, yet its people still face poverty and a lack of basic services.
Resources are extracted in the name of development, he said, but no improvement is visible in people’s lives.
Gas produced in Balochistan does not reach many of its cities in an adequate way, he added, pointing to basic-service problems in his ancestral city, Zhob.
He also spoke of poor internet access and said that in Balochistan’s main city, Shaal , connections are at times shut down for long periods without prior notice, in the name of security.
The exploitation of mineral wealth cannot be called development, he said. If the dignity of the people of Balochistan is ignored, no port can become a symbol of prosperity.
In his view, lasting peace is impossible without justice, reconciliation is impossible without truth, and trust cannot be built where there is no accountability.
Placing human rights above political, religious or ethnic division, he said human rights have no political party, no religion, no race and no uniform. Human rights are either for everyone, or they have no meaning.
He urged the international community to hear the “credible allegations” emerging about Balochistan, to investigate them independently, and to allow observers, journalists, affected families and political voices to play their role without fear.
“We are not asking anyone to accept what we say with their eyes closed,” he said. “Our demand is only this: listen, investigate and verify. Because truth is not afraid of transparency.”
Appealing to the world not to apply a double standard, he said that if an enforced disappearance in Europe matters, it should matter equally in Balochistan; if freedom of expression matters in Geneva, that right should also matter in Shaal; and if justice for political prisoners is necessary in any other region of the world, political prisoners in Balochistan are entitled to justice as well.
Do not wait for another tragedy, he said. Do not wait for the moment when another generation grows up with only memories of conflict.
Honouring Shaheed Chairman Zubair Baloch at the conference, Shahid Qazi said, was not limited to remembering his name. It was an act of keeping alive the principles for which he stood — human dignity, justice and political rights.
History, he said, does not remember political leaders only for the offices they held. They are remembered because they stood for a struggle larger than themselves.
Those working for Balochistan, he said, want “dignity, not domination,” and a future in which the people of Balochistan can, without fear, determine their own political future and their own political dignity.
Expressing solidarity with the families of the forcibly disappeared, he said they have “not been forgotten.”
He closed his address with the words: “Fear will make you a prisoner, while hope will set you free.”