Pak police raid Amnesty International scholar's home

Pakistan authorities raided the home of a well-known Baluchistan author, intellectual and social and political activist Professor Naela Qadri.

Police raided the home of Naela Qadri, who is also a member of the Amnesty International and Human Righst Commission of Pakistan, in what the her party colleagues described as scare tactics.

Qadri is author of three books including Nuclearization of Asia.

Qadri was an assistant professor of pharmacy at the University of Balochistan but lost her job when she publicly criticized Pakistan's nuclear tests in the mountains of Balochistan in 1998.

In her work for Conscience Promoters she helped to raise relief supplies during the terrible famine in Balochistan in the spring and summer of 2000. She is also an active member of the global peace network Women Waging Peace.

Qadri had come out with statements that the famine was linked with the nuclear tests.

[Qadri said that extra judicial arrests were being made in Balochistan. According to an estimate 8000 people have been arrested, as a result of which migration from Balochistan towards Afghanistan and Iran was taking place. She said that it is not just a made-up story or a piece of fiction: she herself had been arrested and two people from her family are still missing. She said we do not have much faith in the current provincial parliament as the indigenous Baloch parties did not constitute it: they boycotted the elections.

The youth of Balochistan do not see a united Pakistan nor think like a united Pakistani. They (the youth) ask, "Why should we?" They see their women being abused, raped, young men arrested, respected leaders bombed.
http://www.piler.org.pk/eventshyderabadpeaceconference.htm]

In a statement, the premier DC-based American Friends of Baluchistan condemned the raid on Qadri's home and likened it to Iranian authorities raids on the office of Iranian scholar Shirin Ebadi and said Pakistan and Iran are two sides of the same terror coin.

In the past, police arrested her husband Mustafa Raisani for defending Baluch civil and political rights.

Daughter of a famous lawyer who defended nationalist leaders in court trials, Qadri recently joined the pro-independence Baluchistan Republican Party.

Qadri has visited the U.S. in connection with her activism work [See story on this link: http://www.international.ucla.edu/article.asp?parentid=4205]

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