Canada: Baloch activists demonstrate in Toronto, demanding release of Mahrang Baloch

Organisers told ANI news agency that the protest marked the beginning of a wider solidarity campaign calling for their release from what they described as unlawful detention by the Pakistani government.

Activist Mahrang Baloch is currently lodged in Hudda Jail in Quetta.

"We are here today for the release of Baloch political workers, especially our women, girls and daughters. They have been illegally abducted by the Pakistani government, by the Pakistani state," a member of the council told ANI.

A member from the crowd told the news agency, "We are gathered here today to express our concern on the arrest an imprisonment of human rights activist Dr Mahrang Baloch, who is a big voice in Balochistan against the enforced disappearances and atrocities committed by the state of Pakistan. She has been imprisoned when she was protesting outside the hospital where the bodies of many people had been brought. The families were concerned that they belonged to people who had been made to disappear by force, who were being tortured and executed. (She) demanded these bodies be identified and the bodies be shown to the families for the same. The state instead arrested her."

The protesters were seen holding banners and shouting slogans against the Pakistani government.

In a press release issued after the rally, the Baloch Human Rights Council alleged that the Pakistani state and its security agencies were responsible for enforced disappearances, torture, extrajudicial killings, and widespread human rights violations in Balochistan, ANI reported.