Justice for Arif Wazir! Help to stop the oppression of Pashtuns by Pakistani authorities

A prominent leader of PTM, Arif Wazir, was shot dead by state-sponsored militants in Pakistan’s South Waziristan tribal district. Amnesty urged Pakistani authorities to "carry out an independent and effective investigation" into the attack. "The suspected perpetrators must be held accountable," the international rights group tweeted. Owing to his activism, Arif Wazir was subjected to several arbitrary arrests under trumped-up charges of sedition among many others. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has said that the authorities have made allegations of anti-state activities “as an expedient label for human rights defenders, particularly those associated with the PTM." Arif Wazir had lost his father, brother, and 15 other extended family members to the attacks from the Taliban and several other terrorist groups that had been let in and placed in Waziristan and other tribal districts by the Pakistani Army.
PTM is a non-violent movement holding processions, marches, and sit-ins all over Pakistan demanding justice for thousands of victims of extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances carried out by the military. These demands are a thorn in the military’s side. In April 2019, during a presser, Major General Asif Ghafoor, military’s spokesperson, threatened PTM that “their time is up”. PTM has been subjected to brutal crackdowns, such as media blackouts of PTM’s rallies, travel bans on PTM leaders, firing of PTM activists from jobs, death threats, abductions, torture, and killings of PTM activists. In February 2019, a prominent activist of PTM and a college Professor, Arman Luni, was killed by an ex-military-turned-police officer during a crackdown on a peaceful sit-in in Loralai district of Balochistan. In May 2019, Pakistan Army, using live ammunition, killed 14 and injured 25 during a PTM protest led by Ali Wazir and Mohsin Dawar -both are lawmakers of the lower house of the Pakistani parliament-, in Khar Kamar area in North Waziristan. Gulalai Ismail, PTM and women´s rights activist, was forced to flee the country due to death threats issued to her by Pakistan’s spy agency, ISI. Seeing the urgency of the matter, PTM (Netherlands) requests you and the (Dutch) government to raise the issue at the highest levels with the Pakistani authorities, who deny PTM-activists their basic freedoms and democratic governance, and to issue a public statement against the repression of free speech and free association, the abductions and killings of PTM-activists and leaders, and to call for an immediate independent investigation into Arif Wazir’s death. PTM hopes that actions taken in this regard by the human right organisation en the pariliaments of different free country's in de world will pressurize Pakistan into abiding by the human rights conventions the country has signed, will deter Pakistani authorities from violating the rights of its citizens guaranteed by International Human Rights Law, UN declaration of Human Rights,
UN Convention on Child rights and other relevant conventions and treaties to which the State of Pakistan is a signatory.

Sincerely,

PTM Netherlands