She wasn't even a dissident as it is typically imagined of this word, she was just a glorified blogger and youtuber for all practical purposes. Unfortunately, she wasn't someone famous like Snowden or Assange though, she was just a commoner like you and me. We were all involved in some kind of "activism" or other in our lives, weren't we? Me writing this blog post is also a kind of activism.
So Karima Baloch was a Baloch dissident who fled Balochistan in 2016 after she was accused of separatism there and sought refuge in Canada. Canada hadn't actually granted her asylum yet but it was under application, they still allowed her to stay there as a refugee.
In Canada, Karima continued her activism for the freedom of Balochistan province of which she was a native. She was no different than thousands of other Baloch activists who are part of the Baloch freedom movement. Or for that matter, she was no different than the millions of activists globally working on all kinds of political activism, be it for freedom of an occupied territory, gay rights, right to abortion, against gasoline price hike or whatever.
But the secret agency of her home country (ISI) wanted to send her a message. The message was that not only we will make your life miserable in your own country but we will also not tolerate your political views against us wherever you are in this world, even if its as advanced a nation as Canada or Sweden. And that message came in the form of her being found dead under mysterious circumstances near Lake Ontario in Toronto, Canada two days ago on 22nd December, 2020.
Honestly speaking, all Karima ever did as a "dissident" or "activist" was post on her twitter account where some of her tweets are now being defaced with abusive comments by propagandist trolls of her home country. Apart from that, she also appeared on some youtube shows on the TAG TV channel. If this was enough to piss off a three letter agency so much that they decided to justify this innocent girl's killing in cold-war era style, I don't think any dissident will ever be safe on this planet again. And this wasn't their first either, another Baloch dissident named Sajid Hussain was similarly found dead under mysterious circumstances in Sweden in March this year. At that time, Sweden cops had closed the case but now people are suspecting that this same three letter agency must be behind that death too.
People should raise voices against such extra-judicial killings whenever and wherever they happen. The Canadian police is very hush hush in this matter right now, they aren't revealing any details about this and looking to close this case as fast as possible, most likely due to their PM Justin Trudeau's close affinity with her home country.
But people all over the world shouldn't let them do that, they should keep pestering them until they reveal the names of her killers and bring them to justice (even though there is little hope of that actually happening). If you don't raise your voices, tomorrow it could be you, me or any of your close friends or relatives who's unclaimed bodies will be sailing on a deserted lake. Never for a moment think that you are safe and this will never happen to you because you are on the "right" side of politics because political affiliations keep changing frequently and cold blooded killers throwing orders in a military headquarter are nobody's friends, remember that.
Watch this "Cut the Clutter" episode by Shekhar Gupta on youtube to understand more about the history of this political movement and details of this killing.
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