ISLAMABAD: The life imprisonment handed down to Baloch human rights defender Mahrang Baloch last month extends beyond the fate of one activist in Pakistan’s Balochistan province. It has raised a larger question confronting Islamabad: whether a state can effectively defeat violent extremism while simultaneously shrinking the space for peaceful dissent, a report has stated.
The answer to that broader question will have implications not only for Balochistan but also for the future balance between security, democracy and citizenship in Pakistan. Sustainable peace requires more than military victories against insurgents — it also demands that ordinary citizens who reject violence retain faith in justice, accountability and democratic participation through peaceful means, according to a report in the International Centre for Peace Studies (ICPS).
“The arrest of Mahrang Baloch in March 2025 became one of the defining moments in Pakistan's handling of the long-running Baloch conflict. She was later convicted on trumped up charges of having incited violence that resulted in the death of a Frontier Corps soldier during the July 2024 Gwadar protest and sentenced to life imprisonment along with a fellow activist named Sibghatullah Shah by an Anti-Terrorism Court in Quetta. She remains imprisoned in Pakistan following the life sentence,” the report detailed.
“For Islamabad, use of such a method to stamp out Baloch resistance is part of a broader policy framework aimed at maintaining national security. For her supporters, however, it represents something far more consequential: the shrinking of democratic space and the criminalisation of peaceful dissent in a province that has endured decades of political alienation, enforced disappearances, militarisation, and economic marginalisation,” it added.
According to the report, Mahrang Baloch did not rise through an armed movement but gained prominence as a peaceful activist advocating justice for missing persons, accountability for alleged human rights abuses, and stronger constitutional safeguards for the people of Balochistan.
“Whether one agrees with every aspect of her politics or not, her activism belongs to the realm of civil protest rather than armed insurgency,” it noted.
Emphasising the critical distinction between peaceful political mobilisation and violent militancy, the report said that when states fail to differentiate between the two, they risk marginalising moderate voices while inadvertently reinforcing militant narratives.
“Recent developments in Balochistan make this concern particularly urgent. Alongside growing restrictions on political activism, militant organisations have fundamentally altered their operational strategies, including an unprecedented increase in the recruitment and deployment of women in suicide attacks. The simultaneous suppression of peaceful activism and the expansion of violent insurgency present a paradox that deserves careful examination,” it highlighted.
--IANS
