The Baloch Yakjehti (Solidarity) Committee) called all people of Balochistan to join the Nation Gathering in the city of Gwadar today. The National Gathering is meant to protest the atrocities and crimes that the Pakistani state is committing against the Baloch people. For decades the Pakistani state has been abducting Baloch youth that are protesting against the exploitation of their land. Thousands have been found dead or are missing for years. Balochistan is the region in Pakistan most rich in natural resources but with the lowest life standard in the country.

The city of Gwadar is a strategic harbor city, in which the Chinese and Pakistani states are building one of the biggest harbors in the region, a part of a trade corridor that China is building through Pakistan to reach the Indian Ocean. This project is leading to displacement and eviction of the Baloch people. The resistance organized against this imperial politics involves armed struggle as well as civil ways of protesting. Against all of these forms of resistance, the Pakistani state shows the same brutal approach, militarizes Balcoh cities and now wants to hinder the people to join the national gathering.

Among other democratic and revolutionary forces, the Democratic Youth of Syria also calls for solidarity with the Baloch National Gathering. The Co-Chair of the Democratic Youth of Syria, Nasser Nassero, released the following message:

“From the ground of the Revolution, from Rojava (West Kurdistan), North-East Syria, we extend our warmest greetings. As the youth of Rojava, we always follow you and your struggle and see it as something holy. As our revolution, as our struggle, as our wish for freedom, you live the same wish for freedom. You are confronted with the massacres and barbaric attacks by the colonial states too.

A national gathering, as you are preparing it, is for us a source of excitement and it is a blessing for us to be with you. We want to express that together, as oppressed people, as people that wish for freedom, we will wage a struggle to liberate our lands together. We hope that you will always continue your struggle, we hope that we will always struggle together. As freedom-loving people, we are confronted with massacres and genocide, and annihilation on a daily basis. Through occupation and division, they want to destroy us. But we will struggle side by side, as youth, young women and society. We will struggle together so we can liberate our lands. We will never bow down to the colonizers, we will always rise up against colonialism. We will continue our struggle and together we will be able to achieve freedom and liberate our lands!”