The disappeared: why Pakistan is feeling spooked over missing social media activists
The suspected abductions of five social media personalities have fuelled fears the country’s formidable national security apparatus is expanding its reach, opening a ‘dark new chapter’ for civil society
The disappearances this month of five Pakistani social media activists have fuelled a rare public examination of the pervasive powers wielded by the country’s national security apparatus and the elected government’s inability to rein them in.
The five men were detained in Islamabad, the capital, and in and around the populous eastern city of Lahore between January 4 and 7, all by plain-clothed men riding pickup trucks.
No shots were fired during the detentions, nor any claims of responsibility made. The only communications were sent to family members from personal devices by abductors posing as abductees. The wife of respected leftist poet and blogger Salman Haider was instructed to collect his car from a highway junction on the outskirts of Islamabad.
Human rights groups were quick to draw a parallel between the disappearances of the activists and those of scores of people who regularly go missing from areas of Pakistan affected by two-decades-old insurgencies by the Taliban in northwest tribal areas bordering Afghanistan and by separatists waging a low-intensity rebellion in the western province of Baluchistan.
Baluchistan is home to the port of Gwadar, the focal point of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a US$51.5 billion investment programme that is part of President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) One Belt, One Road trade initiative to improve China’s connectivity with its neighbours.