Mahrang Baloch, a leading rights activist for the ethnic Baluch minority, was prevented from leaving Pakistan to attend a ceremony in the United States, she reported on October 8.
"I was unjustly stopped at Karachi International Airport with no legal or valid given reason, which is a clear violation of my fundamental right to freedom of movement," she wrote on X.
She said the action was intended to "silence Baluch voices from being heard internationally, control the flow of information about the situation in Balochistan, and conceal the decades-long human rights abuses occurring in Balochistan.”
She was set to attend an event in New York after being named in the TIME100 Next 2024 list recognizing her human rights work.
Earlier this year, Baloch helped organize a women's march against alleged unlawful enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killing by the authorities in Balochistan Province.
SEE ALSO: In Pakistan, Women March For More RightsMary Lawlor, the UN special rapporteur on human rights defenders, said that she was "very concerned by the blocking of Mahrang Baloch from being permitted to travel to the USA yesterday and the reported harassment, intimidation and mistreatment that followed at the hands of the police."
Balochistan, Pakistan’s largest province, borders Iran and Afghanistan. Since 2000, numerous armed Baluch ethnonationalist groups have fought against Islamabad.
Baluch political groups, including those seeking greater autonomy through parliamentary politics, accuse Pakistan of engaging in grave rights abuses.
They accuse Islamabad of exploiting their vast natural resources and seeking to control the province by appointing pro-government figures who lack popular support.
SEE ALSO: The Rise Of The Baloch Liberation Army In PakistanThe Baluch people are a majority of their province's estimated 15 million residents but are a relatively small minority in the South Asian country of some 240 million people.
In January, Pakistan's caretaker prime minister at the time, Anwar ul-Haq Kakar, defended the government's action in the province, insisting that Islamabad was fighting separatist groups such as the Baloch Liberation Army, the Baloch Liberation Front, and the Baloch Republican Army.
Protesters led by Mahrang Baloch take to the streets in Pakistan's Balochistan Province in July 2024.
"These groups have killed between 3,000 to 5,000 people," he said, adding that the security forces kill many of the militants involved in the violence.
"We do acknowledge the right of protest of the relatives of these terrorists," he said. "But we do not acknowledge the right of [those militants] to commit [acts of terror]."