Pakistan court sentences Balochistan rights activist to life in jail

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A Pakistani court has sentenced a prominent rights activist from southern Balochistan Province to life imprisonment on murder and terror charges, drawing condemnation from civil liberties advocates this week.

Mahrang Baloch, 33, was arrested in 2025 on charges stemming from a protest in the coastal city of Gwadar the previous year, which sparked clashes that left a paramilitary soldier dead.

Ms. Baloch, the founder of the Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC), was handed the sentence in an anti-terrorism court in the Provincial capital Quetta on Monday (June 22, 2026), according to a copy of the decision.

Her lawyer, Israr Jattak, told AFP his client had boycotted the earlier court hearings “because we didn’t have any trust in the court. This wasn’t an ordinary case.”

The court held that Ms. Baloch was an active participant in the “unlawful assembly” and “shared the common object of committing the murder” of the paramilitiary force member.

The prosecution had alleged that the security force member was killed after being hit by sticks and stones. Ms. Baloch’s legal team denied the charges, and her sister Nadia Baloch told AFP they would appeal the decision in a higher court.

The BYC has denounced extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances and arbitrary arrests in Balochistan — Pakistan’s most resource-rich Province, where around half the population live below the poverty line.

Authorities deny breaching civil liberties and say ramped-up security is necessary to address a deadly insurgency in the border Province.

International rights group Amnesty International called for the immediate release of Mahrang Baloch and other activists detained in the case.

“This verdict, which is an affront to the right to a fair trial, demonstrates how Pakistan’s anti-terrorism laws are being cynically misused to silence peaceful dissent,” said Isabelle Lassee, Amnesty International’s Acting Regional Director for South Asia, in a statement on Tuesday (June 23).

She added that Mahrang Baloch and BYC organisers “are being targeted solely for their human rights work”. Authorities have previously denied accusations of politicisation of Pakistan’s legal system.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said the government was pursuing “its policy of dealing with advocacy for fundamental rights in the same way as it deals with militancy”. Security forces are battling increasing separatist militant attacks in Balochistan, which borders Afghanistan and Iran.