Seven prominent youth and trade union activists have been disappeared in Karachi by the Army and Sindh Rangers, a paramilitary state department notorious for extra-judicial killings. Nobody has been told about their whereabouts so far and no case has been registered against them.
These activists, all of them members of Lal Salaam (International Marxist Tendency) were arrested because they joined the solidarity protest of Pashtun Tahafuz (Protection) Movement (PTM) in front of the Karachi Press club.
The protest was organized and called by the leadership of the PTM as they were being denied the right to hold a peaceful public meeting in Lahore.We therefore demand the immediate release of these seven activists of the IMT abducted by the Pakistan Army. Their only crime is to have expressed their views about the Pakistani State and supported the PTM in front of the Karachi Press Club today. We also demand that the demands of the PTM should be accepted immediately and State should end its atrocities in the tribal areas and stop supporting Islamic fundamentalism. This petition is to demand the immediate release of these activists and an end to the repression against PTM.
Those arrested so far are:
- Karim Parhar, leader of PTM and Red Workers’ Front (RWF) Quetta
- Attaullah Afridi, Organizer of Progressive Youth Alliance (PYA) Karachi
- Aftab Ashraf, central organizer of RWF
- Umer Riaz, Organizer of PYA Islamabad
- Zain ul Abideen, Central Organizer of PYA
- Muhammad Gulbaz, Organizer of RWF Kashmir
- Bilawal Baloch, Deputy General Secretary of PYA
Articles regarding the incident- Six comrades of IMT disappeared by the army! Another Marxist is missing in Pakistan
