After Iraqi forces take Tikrit, a wave of looting and lynching

TIKRIT, Iraq (Reuters) – On April 1, the city of Tikrit was liberated from the extremist group Islamic State. The Shi’ite-led central government and allied militias, after a month-long battle, had expelled the barbarous Sunni radicals.

Then, some of the liberators took revenge.

Near the charred, bullet-scarred government headquarters, two federal policemen flanked a suspected Islamic State fighter. Urged on by a furious mob, the two officers took out knives and repeatedly stabbed the man in the neck and slit his throat. The killing was witnessed by two Reuters correspondents. 

The incident is now under investigation, interior ministry spokesman Brigadier General Saad Maan told Reuters.

Since its recapture two days ago, the Sunni city of Tikrit has been the scene of violence and looting. In addition to the killing of the extremist combatant,

Reuters correspondents also saw a convoy of Shi’ite paramilitary fighters – the government’s partners in liberating the city – drag a corpse through the streets behind their car.

Local officials said the mayhem continues. Two security officers, speaking on condition of anonymity, said on Friday that dozens of homes had been torched in the city. They added that they had witnessed the looting of stores by Shi’ite militiamen.

Later Friday, Ahmed al-Kraim, head of the Salahuddin Provincial Council, told Reuters that mobs had burned down “hundreds of houses” and looted shops over the past two days. Government security forces, he said, were afraid to confront the mobs. Kraim said he left the city late Friday afternoon because the situation was spinning out of control.

“Our city was burnt in front of our eyes. We can’t control what is going on,” Kraim said.

Footprints: ‘Kill and dump’ in Sindh

By Saher Baloch

Sarwech Ali Pirzado’s grave stands out in the ancestral Pirzado graveyard in Balhreji, Larkano district. A red Jeay Sindh Muttahida Mahaz (JSMM) flag is spread over the grave. Another party flag flutters beside it. Known as ‘little Moscow’, Balhreji has seen many socialist and communist movements, evidence of which is found on the main entrance to the street where the graveyard is located. There is a plaque here in memory of “social reformer Muhib Hussain Pirzado”.

The area has been in the spotlight in recent weeks, as the venue where families from across Sindh receive the tortured bodies of their relatives — activists of Sindh’s nationalist parties who hailed largely from Larkano district.

Sitting on a charpoy in his modest home, Sarwech’s father Lutuf Pirzado wore an expression of resigned acceptance as he mentioned his son’s affiliation with the JSMM’s student wing, the Jeay Sindh Students Federation (JSSF). Himself an active member of the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy in the 1980s, Lutuf received 15 lashes in prison for wall-chalking and demanding the release of communist leader Jam Saqi.

Bleeding Sindh

By Ayesha Siddiqa

As Imran Khan and the PTI vociferously protest the death of their worker in Faisalabad, many mothers elsewhere in the country must be sitting lamenting their sons and wondering who will lock down the country and force the state to answer why their sons will not return. While we all got used to missing persons and tortured bodies in Balochistan, it’s odd to find Sindh becoming part of the same tragic cycle.

Death and dead bodies are not new to Sindh. Every decade since the 1980s, the province has bled for one reason or the other. But this current spate of killings seems to be a new pattern. It is almost as if Sindhi nationalism is being woken up. Interestingly, the six dead bodies found recently did not belong to violent nationalists. In fact, five out of the six were men who had moved on in life. Notwithstanding old associations with the JSMM, these people were not actively involved in any ‘anti-state’ activity or even in party politics.

In any case, one thought that from the state’s perspective, Sindh was not Balochistan. The province had been through this phase during the 1980s when people challenged the military regime and were killed for it. Like Balochistan, Sindh was politically vibrant. The Sindhi media and intelligentsia was politically active and educated people about issues in its own language. Fast-forward to the 2000s, things were manipulated and changed. Despite the media still being active, it has begun to behave and sound more like the media in the rest of the country. What the state couldn’t purchase or silence was bought over by influential dons.

Please listen the concerns of Sindh.

Video clip is in Hindi/ urdu language.

Courtesy: Awaz Tv + DailyMotions

Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP’s) alarm at missing men in Sindh turning up dead

By HRCP

Lahore, December 5: The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has expressed grave alarm at the rapid rise in enforced disappearances in Sindh, with the victims turning up dead. Those taken away are young men, mainly political activists, picked up from various parts of the province in the last few months. Mutilated dead bodies of many of the victims have been found. HRCP demanded immediate steps to put an end to the ghastly trend and to bring the killers to justice.

In a statement issued on Friday, the Commission said: “HRCP has noted with great alarm increasing reports of enforced disappearance of citizens, mainly activists of nationalist political parties, in Sindh and their tortured bodies being found weeks or months later.

The victims include Shakeel Sindhi, a Sindh University student, was abducted from his house in Karachi on October 6 and his dead body was found on October 11. Jeay Sindh Muttahida Mahaz (JSMM) activist Paryal Shah was abducted from a public transport bus headed from Dahrki to Kashmor on November 7. His dead body was found the same day from a village on the Sindh-Punjab border. The bullet-riddled body of Roshan Brohi, a resident of Larkana and a JSMM activist, was found in a gunny bag near Malir, Karachi, on November 12. He had been picked up on October 26. The dead body of SindhUniversity student and JSMM activist Asif Panhwar was found in a village of Larkana district on November 26. He had been shot several times. He had been picked up by security agencies from Jamshoro on August 15. On November 27, the bullet-riddled body of Jeay Sindh Qaumi Mahaz (JSQM) activist Waheed Lashari was found in a sewerage pond in Karachi’s Malir area. He had been abducted 29 days earlier from Qambar Shahdadkot, when he was travelling with his sister in a public transport van. Allah Wadio, a first year student, was abducted on August 13 from Karachi. On December 02 unidentified persons threw him in a critical condition near Hub Chowki. Police informed his parents who admitted him to Civil Hospital Karachi. He was reportedly picked up from there by security agencies’ personnel and on December 3 his dead body was found from Hyderabad Bypass.

U.S. Congressman Brad Sherman’s statement about the extra-judicial killings of enforced missing Sindhi political activists.

Saddened to learn of recent extra judicial killings of innocent Sindhis in Pakistan My heart goes out to the families of the killed & missing

Courtesy: Twitter
See more » https://twitter.com/BradSherman/status/539915149235458048
Via Facebook

Watch the renowned writer, scholar, philosopher and political commentator Noam Chomsky’s statement about extra-judicial killings of enforcedly disappeared Sindhi political activists

Watch the statement of renowned writer, scholar, philosopher and political commentator Noam Chomsky on extra-judicial killings of enforcedly disappeared Sindhi political activists and forced conversion of Sindhi Hindu girls!

Courtesy: Noam Chomsky + YouTube

Riaz sohail from Killing fields of Sindh

 

Karachi: One more mutilated dead body of Sindhi activist Faheem Bhutto found in Hub, near Karachi.

Read more » BBC
more » http://www.bbc.co.uk/urdu/pakistan/2014/12/141202_sindh_nationalist_killed_rh?ocid=socialflow_facebook

Bodies of two activists found in Jamshoro

By Mohammad Hussain Khan

HYDERABAD: Jamshoro police on Monday identified the bodies of two nationalist activists who had been found the previous night.

Their families identified them in the mortuary of Liaquat University Hospital (LUH) city branch where police shifted the bodies after finding them in their area.

“It was a desolated area and we found them at 11.30pm…they were shifted to the mortuary at 12.30pm,” said Jamshoro SSP Naeem Sheikh.

He hinted at the possibility that the condition of the two bodies indicated that they might have been thrown there on Saturday or early Sunday morning.

Lutf Pirzado, father of one of deceased, 24 year old Sarvech Pirzado identified his son and Abid Langah, brother of other deceased Wajid Langah reached hospital late Monday night form upper Sindh to identify his brother and receive his body.

The banned Jeay Sindh Muttahida Mahaz (JSMM) page on a social website also posted photograph of body of Sarvech Pirzado, claiming him to be one of their leaders.

Abid Langah, however told journalists that he was not aware of any political affiliation of his brother.

“He used to run a shop in Pipri area of Karachi and had gone missing on Aug 13 there,” he said.

The mother of Sarvech Prizado, Mehrun Nisa had filed a constitutional petition before the Sindh High Court, according to her counsel, Zamir Ghumro.

He told Dawn.com that the court had heard the petition on Nov 27 and ordered DIG South Zone Karachi to produce him before the court.

“I had told the court that we apprehend him [Sarvech] otherwise he might be killed the way other nationalist activists are killed,” he said.

Read also: Protests over ‘custodial killing’ of nationalists

Ghumro explained that Sarvech had dissociated himself from JSMM and he showed a report from a newspaper, mentioning that he has quit the group.

He said that a non-cognizable offence report was lodged with Preedy police in Karachi.

Sarvech’s father talked to journalists in a choked voice to express his feeling. “I am proud of my son,” he said.

Lutf himself worked in a communist movement and was part of the Movement for Restoration of Democracy (MRD).

A few days back, the bodies of two JSMM activists were found.

Before that the bodies of two men, said to be affiliated with banned outfits were also found on Super Highway within the jurisdiction of Kotri police station, Jamshoro.

According to a civil society activist, Zulfiqar Halepoto, he had briefed UN Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances in Sept 2012 how nationalist activists are picked-up and their bodies then thrown.

“Almost all Sindhi nationalist parties leaders met the group whose members expressed their concern over such incidents,” he said.

Halepoto was part of a rally recently organised in the city to condemn extra-judicial killings of political activists.

JSMM has recently called for a strike against the deaths of its workers.

Courtesy: DAWN
Read more » http://www.dawn.com/news/1148102/bodies-of-two-activists-found-in-jamshoro

Two more enforced disappeared Sindhi activists Serwach Pirzado and Wajid Langah’s bullet ridden dead bodies found at link road of Super Highway

By Riaz Sohail

Two more enforcedly disappeared Sindhi activists Serwach Pirzado and Wajid Langah’s bullet ridden dead bodies found at link road of Super Highway.

Read more » BBC
More » http://www.bbc.co.uk/urdu/pakistan/2014/12/141201_sindh_nationalist_bodies_found_zz?ocid=socialflow_facebook

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News adopted via Facebook

An ‘Open Letter’ by Dr. Allah Nazar of the Balochistan Liberation Front to Pakistan TV anchor, Hamid Mir

March 15, 2013

Dear Hamid Mir,

I am writing you this letter with the hope that perhaps the historians of the next century – standing in the witness box of history – will reveal the truth about the oppressed Baloch nation, hold the colonial powers and occupying rulers of the day accountable and examine the role and discourse of its advocates and intelligentsia. It should not be the case that today’s columnists and intellectuals are restrained by the fear of the ruler or its lust for conquest.

A century ago, British Lord B. Fell said, “We know and understand the history of Egypt far better than the Egyptians do.” Even one hundred and 25 years later these contemptuous words remain on the pages of history.

Similarly, the President of Pakistan, Asif Ali Zardari, when in Garhi Khuda Baksh said, “Baloch should learn politics from us.”

His implication was that the Baloch are ignorant, illiterate and unfamiliar with statecraft–born to be slaves. There is only the gap of a century between the words of Lord B. Fell and President Zardari, but the subject and message is the same: the lesson of slavery.

Mr. Hamid Mir, you hold the leading position among contemporary intellectuals belonging to the colonial state’s electronic and print media. Many of the policies of the state are devised and executed with the counsel of your community.

But knowledge and consciousness demand to be on the side of truth. Jean-Paul Sartre, who despite being French, supported the Algerian freedom movement against the colonial system with his pen and wrote a golden chapter of history.

Like Sartre, Mr. Hamid Mir, you are an intellectual. Yet you not only support the inhumane, immoral and terrorizing conduct of the occupying state in Balochistan, you have also actively advised the state regarding how to eliminate the Baloch freedom fighters and how to perpetuate its occupation over Baloch land.