If you don’t speak up for the oppressed, you support the oppressor: Dr Mahrang

Power cuts are a routine in Karachi, but the timing of a blackout just before the arrival of Baloch rights activist Dr Mahrang Baloch at the new bar room at the City Courts raised many eyebrows. After over half an hour of wait, power was restored only to go out again a few minutes later. So, the hosts decided to proceed with her speech without electricity.

However, lkhtiar Ali Channa, general secretary of the Karachi Bar Association, blamed a localised fault for the power disruption. Addressing the lawyers, Dr Mahrang said: “This issue of power today shows that the institutions are fearful. We all say that our activism is not a problem for them, but today a ‘super power’ is playing hide and seek with electricity so that I can hide the truth.”

She lamented that if you don't speak up for the oppressed, you support the oppressor. Dr Mahrang said one who speaks the truth in society finds himself alone, while liars enjoy all luxuries.

“Everyone from lawyers to journalists are worried about curbs on freedom of expression, which have reached the level where whoever speaks for human rights or personal rights is branded a terrorist or state opponent,” she added.

“In this suffocating environment, the Karachi Bar Association’s leadership by hosting this event has shown that there still are people who speak for the rights of human beings and the oppressed people.”

Dr Mahrang said there was a law of jungle in the country where human beings were being treated like animals. About the proposed constitutional amendment for judicial reforms, she said the constitution is not implemented, and had it been implemented, no person would have been kept in illegal confinement. But today, she alleged, Balochistan is suffering because of the inhuman act of enforced disappearances. “So where is your law?”

She said the constitution calls for the protection of human rights, but no citizen here is given his/her civil or fundamental rights.

“There exit only two classes in our society today: the oppressors and the oppressed. If you don’t speak up for the oppressed, you support the oppressor. You have to choose who you stand with as neutrality doesn’t exist,” she maintained, adding that society won’t progress until we unite and raise voice against this fascism.

She said the authorities want to set up new courts through a proposed amendment, but what justice has been dispensed by the existing ones. Speaking on the occasion, KBA President Amir Nawaz Warraich said that the legal fraternity had always stood with the oppressed and would support Dr Mahrang at every step.