Press release

Karachi: The Awami Workers Party (AWP) has slammed the cancellation of a session to discuss Balochistan at a literary festival.

The session titled “Balochistan: a dialogue” at the Sindh Literature Festival (SLF) was cancelled an hour before it was scheduled to take place on Monday.

Veteran Leftist political leader and AWP president Yousuf Mustikhan, Balochistan National Party (BNP) leader Sanaullah Baloch, writer and researcher Dr Shah Mohammad Marri, Balochistan minister for finance Zahoor Ahmed Buledi and student leader Mahrang Baloch were the guest speakers.

A large number of students and activists from Balochistan had gathered to attend the session. However they were taken aback to know that the session has been cancelled.

AWP secretary-general Akhtar Hussain Advocate in a statement said that on the one hand the government claims that it was taking measures for a solution to Balochistan imbroglio through dialogue, while on the other a literary session is got cancelled.

This exposes the hypocrisy and colonial attitude of the state towards Balochistan, AWP general secretary Akhtar Hussain Advocate said.

This is an alarming situation that the state doesn’t even tolerate a peaceful dialogue and doesn’t want the people of Pakistan to hear about the grievances and issues of the most neglected province.

Sadly the state is muffling and hounding sane voices and those who believe in dialogue, a peaceful democratic struggle for the fundamental rights within constitutional parameters.

While Pakistan is engaged in dialogue with the extremist militant Taliban outfit who are responsible for the killings of thousands of innocent people but regrettably it is not ready to tolerate historians, writers and political activists to speak about Balochistan.