Mama Qadeer barred from foreign travels

Karachi
Authorities have slapped a travel ban on Abdul Qadeer Baloch, known as Mama Qadeer, after he was stopped at Karachi airport as he was about to fly to New York to attend a weekend conference on alleged rights violations in Balochistan and Sindh, sources said on Thursday.
The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) confirmed to AFP that its officers had stopped Qadeer and his companion, fellow senior activist Farzana Majeed, because they are on the government’s Exit Control List of people barred from leaving the country.
However, Majeed said she had visited Dubai only a month ago without any problem. “Last night, we went to Jinnah International Airport, but after checking in, FIA officials told us: ´You are on the ECL, you people are in anti-state activities so we cannot let you (go)’,” she told AFP.
“I am not an anti-state activist, I am only a human rights activist.”
Mama Qadeer is the founder of a pressure group working for information on people who have “disappeared” during the long-running conflict in Balochistan, the country’s largest but least populous province. Last year, he led a group of families with missing relatives on a gruelling 2,000-kilometre march to raise awareness of their cause and demand answers from the government.
The security services such groups accuse of involvement have persistently denied the allegations and say they are battling a fierce rebellion in the province, which is also an important smuggling route for heroin from Afghanistan.