{"id":31707,"date":"2017-01-10T01:49:26","date_gmt":"2017-01-10T01:49:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/concern-over-fate-of-missing-pakistani-activists\/"},"modified":"2017-01-10T01:49:23","modified_gmt":"2017-01-10T01:49:23","slug":"concern-over-fate-of-missing-pakistani-activists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/concern-over-fate-of-missing-pakistani-activists\/","title":{"rendered":"Concern over fate of missing Pakistani activists"},"content":{"rendered":"

{Sources confirm four men, all known for liberal secularist views on social media, disappeared in the span of a week.}<\/p>\n

At least four activists known for their liberal views on social media have gone missing in Pakistan this week, according to relatives and workers of nongovernmental organisations.<\/p>\n

A cybersecurity NGO said two of the men, Waqas Goraya and Asim Saeed, disappeared on January 4, while the relatives of Salman Haider said he vanished on January 6 and Ahmed Raza Naseer on January 7.<\/p>\n

All four were active on social-media groups promoting left-wing, secularist views, often against the country’s military and the conservative establishment.<\/p>\n

The opposition Pakistan’s People’s Party submitted a request in parliament on Monday seeking an answer from the interior ministry on the disappearances, which it labelled a planned and coordinated crackdown to silence voices critical of state policies.<\/p>\n

{{Family worried}}<\/p>\n

Speaking to Al Jazeera by phone from Islamabad, Haider’s brother said that his family is worried about his health as he suffers from a medical condition called anaphylaxis.<\/p>\n

“My brother’s wife received a call late at night asking her to pick up Salman’s car from an unknown location in Islamabad,” Zeeshan Haider said.<\/p>\n

“We did find the car but could not see any sign of Salman. It’s been four days now and we don’t know who and why would anyone kidnap my brother.”<\/p>\n

Haider has written for the largest English-language newspaper, Dawn, and teaches at Fatima Jinnah Women’s University in the city of Rawalpindi, about 15km from capital Islamabad.<\/p>\n

Last year, he wrote a poem about human-rights abuses in Pakistan’s Balochistan province which had a line about disappearances of his friends.<\/p>\n

The government of Pakistan has seen resistance from tribes in Balochistan since the country came in to existence following India’s partition in 1947.<\/p>\n

Baloch nationalists demanding greater political rights, autonomy and control over their natural resources have revolted four times since Pakistan’s creation – in 1948, 1958-59, 1962-63 and 1973-77 – all of which were crushed by the army.<\/p>\n

{{‘Killed, injured, abducted’}}<\/p>\n

According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), the South Asian country “has never been a particularly safe country for rights activists”.<\/p>\n

“Many have been killed, injured, abducted and threatened for their work. Unfortunately, these actions have not always come from non-state quarters,” HRCP, an independent watchdog, said on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Pakistan is also routinely ranked among the world’s most dangerous countries for journalists, and reporting critical of the military is considered a major red flag, with journalists at times detained, beaten and even killed.<\/p>\n

“The state has controlled TV and now they’re focusing on digital spaces,” said Raza Rumi, a writer and analyst who left Pakistan in 2014 after he was attacked by men who shot his driver dead.<\/p>\n

Naseer, who suffers from polio, was taken from his family’s shop in central Punjab province, his brother Tahir told AFP news agency on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Waqas Goraya, who is usually a resident of the Netherlands, was picked up on January 4, as was Aasim Saeed, Shahzad Ahmed, head of cybersecurity NGO Bytes for All, told AFP.<\/p>\n

“None of these activists have been brought to any court of law or levelled with any charges,” Ahmed said.<\/p>\n

Rights activists say the disappearances have stirred unease among those critical of the government and Pakistan’s powerful military, though no evidence has been provided to suggest state actors were involved.<\/p>\n

“No one has the right to be punished for what they believe in. My brother is kidnapped just because he said something a few people did not like,” Zeeshan Haider said.<\/p>\n

\"Clockwise<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{Sources confirm four men, all known for liberal secularist views on social media, disappeared in the span of a week.} At least four activists known for their liberal views on social media have gone missing in Pakistan this week, according to relatives and workers of nongovernmental organisations. A cybersecurity NGO said two of the men, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[101],"byline":[2474],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-31707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-internationl","byline-al-jazeera"],"bylines":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31707\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31707"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=31707"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=31707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}