Pakistan is no country for minorities of any kind, religious or ethnic or gender based. The Pakistani military and intelligence establishment has long viewed any individual or organization that speaks of minority ethnic or linguistic or religious rights as anti-state.
One of these organizations is the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM, which advocates for the rights of ethnic Pashtuns affected by Pakistan’s war against the Taliban, was formed in 2016 by a group of eight university students in the northwestern city of Dera Ismail Khan. “They campaigned against widespread enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings conducted as part of the military’s fight in South Waziristan, as well as for the removal of landmines and other unexploded ordnance once the fighting ended. In 2018, they shot to national prominence when they spearheaded protests against the killing of Naqeebullah Mehsud, a young garment trader and aspiring model shot dead by police in Karachi. At the time, the police had claimed Mehsud was a fighter with armed groups. The PTM represents a generation of Pashtuns who were born in a northwest Pakistan that knew only conflict.”
In mid-2018, two PTM leaders – Mohsin Dawar and Ali Wazir – were elected to parliament from North and South Waziristan respectively. However, the Pakistani deep state has continued to view PTM as anti-national and arrested, imprisoned, and disappeared many of the activists. Even being a Member of Pakistan’s National Assembly does not guarantee any security or safety as can be seen from the plight of PTM MNA, Ali Wazir.
Since December 2020, Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM) lawmaker Ali Wazir is imprisoned at Karachi Central Jail facing sedition and hate speech charges in multiple cases. As an investigative report in RFERL noted “Wazir was arrested in the northwestern city of Peshawar and transferred to the port city of Karachi, where he was charged with making an “anti-state speech” during an unsanctioned rally in the city on December 6. Several other PTM leaders were also charged for remarks they made during the rally. The protest was held to mark the sixth anniversary of the killing of more than 150 people at a Peshawar school in December 2014, an attack blamed on the Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militant group.”
This was not the first time that Wazir was arrested. “Wazir’s arrest last year was not his first run-in with authorities. He was released on bail in September 2019, four months after he was arrested following a deadly incident in the North Waziristan tribal district.”
In mid-June 2022, PPP Senator Raza Rabbani urged the National Assembly to issue production orders for Wazir so that the latter could represent his constituency during the budget session. Even though National Assembly Speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf issued a production order for Wazir, the lawmaker was still not allowed to attend the budget session.
Wazir was recently admitted to Karachi’s Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre and has claimed his life is in danger in the hospital and demanded he either be shifted back to Central Jail in Karachi or be taken to Islamabad.
If the current Pakistani government wishes to demonstrate to its people that it truly believes in democracy, and human rights, then it must secure the release and freedom of a Member of the National Assembly.
