"Free Balochistan": Activists stage protest outside UN headquarters

(Representative Image)

Members of the Baloch community staged a protest outside the United Nations headquarters in New York on Friday, demanding independence for the Balochistan region.

Protestors displayed banners reading "Free Balochistan" to draw attention to their demands.

Speaking to ANI, Sami Baloch of the Baloch National Movement criticised Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif for highlighting global peace issues during his address at the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), while ignoring the situation in Balochistan.

"The Pakistani Prime Minister said in the Assembly today, 'We want peace for Palestine.' What about us, Baloch? You have forcibly occupied us since 1948. You are carrying out extrajudicial killings, killing our people in the courts," Sami Baloch said.

"Our leadership, our peaceful protesters, are still imprisoned for four or five months; there's no allegation against them, and they're suppressing their voices...The unfortunate thing is that the Prime Minister of Pakistan is talking about peace in the world, but you should come to Balochistan and see the reality..." he said.

Sami further asserted that if Pakistan truly seeks peace in the region, it must begin with Balochistan. "The Prime Minister of Pakistan should think that if there is peace, it should be in Balochistan...If we want to bring peace to this region, then Balochistan should be free," he added.

During the fourth day of the 80th United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), the Pakistani prime minister decried the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and Israel's "genocidal onslaught" in Gaza, Al Jazeera reported.

He directly addressed the killing of Hind Rajab, a six-year-old Palestinian girl killed as her family fled Gaza City. Her story has been one of the most enduring atrocities of the war.

"We have all heard her trembling voice on that phone call, which little Hind made as she struggled to stay alive under Israeli onslaught," he said.

"Can you imagine that that little girl, Hind Rajab, as if she was our daughter?" he said, calling for an end to the war.
He also warned the world of escalating climate disasters, as his country faces another season of devastating floods, according to Al Jazeera.

"In 2022, Pakistan faced massive floods of humongous proportions that caused huge losses, amounting to USD 34bn and many valuable lives lost," he told the UNGA.

Sharif said the crisis has returned this year, with "thousands of villages washed away from the face of the earth, millions of people displaced, more than 1,000 killed and billions of dollars of crop, livestock and property washed away".
He called the floods of 2022 and this year "glaring examples of loss and damage caused due to climate change".

"Pakistan contributes less than 1 per cent of global emissions annually, yet it continues to face the relentless brunt and muddy waves of climate change," he added.