Women Weaving the Future Network in solidarity with the Baloch Long March

Women Weaving the Future Network calls for solidarity with the Baloch women in their demand for the abolition of enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, and army atrocities.

The Network Women Weaving the Future released a statement declaring its solidarity with the Baloch Long March.

The statement released by the Network on Monday includes the following:

“We, as the Network Women Weaving the Future, declare our solidarity with the Baloch Long March. Traversing over 1200 kilometres, from Turbat to Islamabad, Baloch women are leading a historic protest against the Pakistani state’s atrocities, including enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, and military operations subjecting thousands of Baloch to unliveable and violent conditions. Together with Baloch women and the people of Balochistan we demand an end to state abductions, encounter killings, and army operations. We support the demands of the Baloch Long March, including that all those forcibly disappeared are immediately released. If killed while in custody, we demand that their bodies be returned to their kin, so they can be buried with dignity. We demand the abolition of “death squads” and the Counter-Terrorism Department, which our Baloch sister comrades have identified as key culprits. We demand an end to fake encounter killings, and an immediate cessation of military raids. We demand accountability and justice for the atrocities committed by the Pakistani state. Finally, we recognise that the practice of enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, and army operations remain a key tool of state repression, which is meted out against other marginalised groups including the Pashtuns, Sindhis, Shias, Mohajir as well as political opponents, such as members of the last governing party around Pakistan.

We join the women and people of Balochistan in their resistance against being silenced and in their resistance against state terror. We share their pain as people who have been subject to similar atrocities by violent and patriarchal states. The attacks of states against people who challenge their oppression everywhere in the world must come to an end for a liveable and more just world to emerge.

We send this statement of solidarity to our Baloch sisters and comrades-in-struggle to recognise that oppression and resistance everywhere is interconnected. From Kurdistan to Balochistan, from Palestine to Kashmir, from anti-racist and indigenous movements around the world, we believe we are stronger when we stand together.

We invite all people — especially women’s and feminist movements as well as abolitionist, anti-racist, anti-colonial, and anti-capitalist movements around the world — to stand in solidarity with our Baloch sister comrades as they march and protest, demanding the abolition of enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, and army atrocities. In solidarity!”