Report in Dawn, December 27th, 2020
KARACHI: Families of Shia victims of ‘enforced disappearance’ staged a protest at Mazar-i-Quaid on the occasion of the birth anniversary of Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah on Friday.
Members of the affected families and leaders and supporters of the Joint Action Committee for Shia Missing Persons participated in the protest demonstration.
Maulana Haider Abbas Zaidi, Maulana Aqeel Moosa, Allama Sadiq Jafari, Allama Mubashir Hassan, Naveed Abbas and others led the protesters.
The victim families and the JAC leaders said they had to protest on 25th of December because they wanted to remind the powers that be to follow the father of the nation.
They said that the Quaid-i-Azam led a struggle for independent and sovereign nation-state where all citizens live their life as per their aspirations.
Therefore, the protesters said those who took policy of the Quaid-i-Azam for granted and violated his principles did not have any moral right to celebrate his birth anniversary.
The families alleged that the authorities concerned subjected innocent Shia Muslims to enforced disappearance because of sectarian bias and discrimination.
The discriminatory and undeclared detention was as a clear violation of rule of law and Mr Jinnah’s ideology, they added.
The Joint Action Committee and the families reiterated their demand that the victims of enforced disappearance were either released or their cases were presented in courts of law.
They said that Shia victims of enforced disappearance should be granted full legal rights to defend themselves in court through lawyers of their choice.
They demanded that the affected families should also be allowed to meet their near and dear ones.
The protesters claimed that the authorities concerned did not honour their words on the issue of release of victims. Instead, the authorities had begun subjecting more innocent people to enforced disappearance, they claimed.
The JAC and the families announced that they would continue their protest movement in phases. They said their protest would be held across the country.
https://www.dawn.com/news/1597960/families-of-shia-victims-of-enforced-disappearance-hold-protest
