QUETTA, BALOCHISTAN: Dr Mahrang Baloch, a prominent leader of the Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC), issued a strongly worded statement from Huda Jail in Quetta on Thursday, denouncing recent allegations levelled against her and the organisation by certain state representatives and members of the Balochistan Assembly as “baseless, fabricated, and part of a systematic campaign to discredit peaceful political activism.”
In the written statement, Dr Baloch described the BYC as a “public, unarmed, and peaceful platform” that has consistently advocated for the fundamental rights of the Baloch people since its founding. She outlined the organisation’s core demands an end to enforced disappearances, the cessation of extrajudicial detentions, freedom of expression, recognition of Baloch rights over the Balochistan’s natural resources and the restoration of constitutional and historical rights for the people of Balochistan.
“These allegations cannot stop us; our national resistance has become the very purpose of our existence and our struggle for the rights and dignity of the Baloch people will continue,” the statement read.
Dr Baloch accused state elements of responding to the BYC’s legitimate demands not with dialogue, but through “false accusations, character assassination and propaganda.” She said that following armed militant activity in Balochistan, state institutions fabricate disinformation against the BYC to deflect accountability and then use public resources to amplify that disinformation through print and social media.
The statement paid tribute to BYC’s central leadership, including Dr Sabiha Baloch, Sammi Baloch, Lala Wahab and other workers, who she said continued to carry out their organisational responsibilities under extremely difficult circumstances over the past year. She described the BYC as a representative body of the Baloch people, noting that the suppression of peaceful movements sends the message that “there is no space for peaceful struggle in this state.”
Addressing state coercion directly, Dr Baloch posed a pointed challenge: “Can your propaganda erase the stories of oppression etched in the hearts of the Baloch people? Can you force a press conference and remove the memory of a son from his mother’s heart?”
She argued that state repression has historically served as the single greatest catalyst for the growth of Baloch national consciousness and that the movement’s reach today is the result of decades of sacrifice, sincerity and love for the homeland.
In her closing remarks, Dr Baloch called on human rights organisations, journalists and justice-seeking communities to examine the facts behind what she called a “coordinated state narrative” and to independently assess the ground situation in Balochistan. She warned that attempts to discredit the BYC through misinformation would not be accepted and affirmed that “history bears witness whenever the pen, knowledge and peaceful political struggle have been suppressed truth and resistance have only grown stronger.”
