What is unfolding in Pakistan’s case is part of a wider global trend. The line between domestic and international repression is becoming harder to draw.

At this year’s session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, Pakistan was once again in the spotlight. That, in itself, is not unusual. What felt different, however, was the tone of the conversations taking place in the corridors and side events. The focus was no longer limited to what happens inside Pakistan’s borders. Increasingly, attention is shifting to what follows critics when they leave.

As someone who studies terrorism and state responses to dissent, I found this shift telling. It points to a broader transformation in how power is exercised. Repression, in this sense, is no longer something contained within territory. It travels with people. It adapts to new environments. And it often slips through the cracks of legal systems that were never designed to deal with such subtle, dispersed pressure.

The discussions on March 27 at the Palais des Nations brought this into sharper focus. Activists and observers described a pattern that many in academic circles have been tracking for some time: the gradual erosion of the idea that exile offers safety. What used to be a clear boundary—inside versus outside—now feels increasingly blurred.

Disappearances at Home, Silence by Design

To make sense of what is happening abroad, it is necessary to begin within Pakistan. Enforced disappearances remain one of the most troubling and persistent issues, particularly in regions like Balochistan. For years, families have protested, sometimes in small groups and sometimes in large marches, asking a simple question: where are their loved ones?

Reports by Human Rights Watch and similar organisations have documented these cases in detail. The pattern is painfully familiar. Someone is taken, often after an encounter with security forces. Then comes silence. No official acknowledgement, no clear legal process, and very little hope of accountability.

What is often missed in policy discussions is the wider effect of this practice. Disappearances are not only about removing individuals; they are about sending a message. Fear spreads outward—from the missing person to their family, their community, and beyond.

In my own research on political violence, I have seen similar dynamics in very different contexts. The actors may differ, but the outcome is strikingly similar: silence, caution, and self-censorship.

The case of Idris Khattak brought rare international attention to this issue. Yet it also highlighted a deeper problem. For every case that reaches global headlines, many more remain invisible. This uneven attention creates what some scholars describe as a “hierarchy of suffering,” where only a handful of stories are heard while the rest fade into the background.

This is reinforced by a lack of transparency. Legal processes are often opaque, oversight is limited, and avenues for redress are weak. Over time, this creates a system where such practices can continue with little consequence. It is from within this environment that the outward projection of pressure begins.

When Pressure Crosses Borders

What became clear in Geneva is that these domestic patterns do not stop at the border. Instead, they seem to follow those who leave. Testimonies from activists, including Roshaan Khattak, painted a picture that is less dramatic than high-profile international incidents, but no less unsettling.

The methods described are rarely direct. There are no dramatic confrontations or visible operations. Instead, the pressure is quieter. Family members back home are approached or questioned. Administrative hurdles appear unexpectedly—delayed documents, unexplained complications. Messages arrive, sometimes anonymous, reminding individuals that distance does not necessarily mean safety.

Because these actions are informal and often deniable, they are extremely difficult to address. Host governments in Europe or North America may be aware that something is happening, but proving it is another matter entirely.

Freedom House has identified Pakistan as one of several countries engaged in what is now termed transnational repression. What stands out in this case is not spectacle, but persistence. There are no headline-grabbing incidents, but rather a steady, ongoing pressure that shapes behaviour over time.

From a research perspective, this challenges how we think about coercion. Traditional frameworks tend to separate what happens inside a country from what happens outside it. But here, the two are clearly connected. The same habits, the same tools—only adapted to a different setting.

A Contemporary Glimpse: Pressure Through Families

A recent case involving journalist Waqas, reported by DropSite, offers a glimpse into how this can unfold in practice. He alleged that police in Karachi harassed his parents after he reported on Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz and claims regarding her son Junaid Safdar’s use of a government Gulfstream jet for a private European trip. According to his account, his family was pressured into issuing a statement.

The Sharif family has firmly denied these allegations, calling them propaganda and stating that the aircraft in question was undergoing maintenance. As with many such cases, the details are contested and difficult to independently verify.

Yet what matters analytically is the pattern. The idea that pressure can be applied not directly to the individual, but to those close to them, is not new. It is, however, highly effective. People may be willing to take risks themselves, but far fewer are willing to see their families bear the consequences.

In studies of coercion and political violence, this kind of indirect pressure is well understood. It works precisely because it targets emotional and social ties that are almost impossible to shield. When used by states, it becomes even more complex, raising difficult questions about accountability and response.

A Policy Gap That Is Hard to Ignore

One of the clearest takeaways from the Geneva discussions is that policy has not kept pace with reality. There is growing documentation of abuses within Pakistan, and now increasing evidence of pressure beyond its borders. Yet responses remain fragmented.

There is still a tendency, particularly in Europe, to assume that offering asylum or residency is enough. In many cases, it is not. The forms of pressure described by activists do not fit neatly into existing legal categories. They rarely cross the threshold required for criminal prosecution, but they still have a real impact on people’s lives.

This creates a difficult situation for governments. How do you respond to something that is hard to prove, easy to deny, and yet clearly harmful? Existing counterterrorism frameworks offer little guidance, as they are largely focused on non-state actors. Diplomatic considerations, meanwhile, often limit how far states are willing to go in confronting such practices.

There are no easy solutions. Better documentation and coordination between countries would be a start. So too would legal frameworks that recognise and address transnational repression more directly. Without such steps, there is a risk that these practices will become more common, not less.

The Bigger Picture

What is unfolding in Pakistan’s case is part of a wider global trend. The line between domestic and international repression is becoming harder to draw. States are finding ways to extend their reach without resorting to overt or easily traceable actions.

For those of us who study political violence, this presents both a challenge and a warning. The tools of control are evolving, and our ways of understanding them need to evolve as well.

The discussions in Geneva made one thing clear: leaving a country no longer guarantees distance from its power structures. Repression, in its modern form, is more flexible than that. It moves through networks, relationships, and systems that span borders.

The question now is whether international institutions and national governments are prepared to deal with this shift. If not, they risk confronting a new reality with outdated assumptions—and that is rarely a winning strategy.

Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not reflect Milli Chronicle’s point-of-view.

By organizing, leading, and, in some cases, fighting, Baloch women are challenging both state power and internal patriarchal constraints.

An extraordinary transformation is underway in Balochistan, one that unsettles long-held assumptions about protest, militancy, and gender in one of South Asia’s most militarized regions. Once pushed to the margins of political life and public dissent, Baloch women have emerged as the central force of a movement that is unprecedented in scale and distinctly indigenous in character.

From long marches demanding answers about enforced disappearances to visible participation in armed resistance, Baloch women are no longer peripheral to the struggle. Increasingly, they are defining it.

This moment marks a historic rupture. For decades, resistance in Balochistan was framed as a male-dominated, tribal insurgency—rooted in geography, kinship, and armed confrontation with the state. Women appeared mainly as mourners or symbols of suffering.

Today, that frame no longer holds. Political consciousness among Baloch women has been forged through loss, repression, and the systematic failure of peaceful avenues for justice, producing a movement that is emotionally charged yet politically sophisticated.

From Protest to Resistance

The immediate catalyst has been the persistence of enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, and collective punishment across the province, documented over the years by Pakistani human rights groups such as the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.

Women—mothers, daughters, and wives of the disappeared—were often the first to mobilize publicly, precisely because men had been silenced through imprisonment, intimidation, or death. Their initial actions were resolutely peaceful: sit-ins outside press clubs, hunger strikes, and arduous long marches toward the capital of Pakistan, demanding little more than acknowledgment and due process.

When these nonviolent efforts produced no accountability, a profound shift followed. Baloch women began occupying spaces once considered unthinkable: leading mass rallies, confronting security officials, and, in some cases, joining armed resistance movements.

Footage released by the Baloch Liberation Army from the Nushki district, showing coordinated attacks on military installations with women visible in frontline roles, crystallized this transformation. The imagery was striking not only for its symbolism but for what it suggested—that sustained repression had expanded the movement beyond traditional gender boundaries.

An Indigenous Movement, Not an Imported Feminism

Despite their rising visibility, many Baloch women consciously reject identification with Pakistan’s urban, mainstream feminist movement. In interviews and public forums, they describe it as detached from Baloch realities and largely silent on state violence in the province. For them, the primary oppressor is not Baloch society per se, but the state’s security architecture.

This sentiment was articulated starkly by Dr. Shalee Baloch at the Saryab Literary Festival in Quetta, where she argued that the language of gender oppression imported from metropolitan centers fails to capture life under militarization. Her remarks echoed a widely shared belief that while patriarchy exists within Baloch society, it has been overshadowed by the far more intrusive violence of the state. When a man is abducted or killed, it is often the women who bear the longest and most visible burden—economically, emotionally, and politically.

The result is a movement that occupies a distinct political space. It neither mirrors liberal Pakistani feminism nor isolates women’s rights from national oppression. Instead, women’s emancipation is articulated as inseparable from the collective struggle for Baloch political rights, resources, and dignity.

Women at the Forefront, Not Behind the Lines

Crucially, this does not mean unquestioning alignment with male leadership. Prominent activists such as Mahrang Baloch have openly challenged men within Baloch society to support women’s education and political participation.

Addressing a massive rally in Quetta at the conclusion of a long march, Mahrang framed women’s empowerment as a measure of national self-respect, insisting that land, history, and struggle belong equally to women and men.

Her message captured a critical evolution. Baloch women are no longer mobilizing behind men as moral support or symbolic figures. They are organizing alongside—and often ahead of—them, setting agendas and redefining leadership in a movement long shaped by masculine norms.

A New Phase of Conflict

The scale of recent violence underscores the depth of this transformation. Coordinated attacks across multiple locations in Balochistan, reportedly resulting in significant casualties among security forces, drew national attention when images of female attackers circulated widely. For many observers, this shattered the assumption that militancy is an exclusively male domain.

Analysts argue that this shift reflects less ideological radicalization than strategic and emotional rupture. Political scientist Ayesha Siddiqa has noted in her writings on civil-military relations that when women enter insurgent movements, it signals the exhaustion of conventional deterrents. The cost of repression has become so normalized that even the deepest social taboos no longer restrain participation.

This pattern has been years in the making. The 2022 Karachi University bombing carried out by Shari Baloch, a highly educated mother of two, marked a grim turning point. Subsequent cases involving women such as Sumaiya Qalandrani Baloch and Banuk Mahikan Baloch suggested that female participation was becoming structurally embedded rather than exceptional.

Notably, many of these women came from educated, middle-class backgrounds, reflecting a broader shift in Baloch resistance away from tribal elites toward politicized, professional constituencies—a trend discussed in regional security analyses published by outlets like Dawn and The Friday Times.

Feminist scholars have long critiqued nationalism as inherently patriarchal, yet the Baloch case complicates that narrative. Here, women are not being asked to defer their rights until after liberation. They are actively reshaping the nationalist project itself, integrating gender equality into its core. By organizing, leading, and, in some cases, fighting, Baloch women are challenging both state power and internal patriarchal constraints.

Whether this experiment will succeed remains uncertain. What is clear, however, is that across Balochistan, women are no longer waiting on history. They are making it—forcefully, visibly, and at great personal cost.

Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not reflect Milli Chronicle’s point-of-view

European states and institutions face a choice. They can treat Pakistan’s clampdown as a bilateral stability problem — useful to manage in quiet channels, rewarded with trade — or they can treat it as a human-rights crisis

When governments throttle the internet, ban critical channels and let critics vanish, the damage is both immediate and structural: lives are imperilled, civic life is narrowed and the civic record is rewritten.

Pakistan’s recent turn toward an intensifying digital chokehold — in which whole swathes of the population are periodically cut off from mobile broadband, social platforms are blocked, independent channels are pushed offline and journalists are intimidated or abducted — should be a clarion call for principled diplomacy from European capitals.

Instead, what we have seen is a studious silence that reveals uncomfortable truths about how human-rights rhetoric is traded against geopolitical convenience.

A digital straitjacket: shutdowns, laws and the shrinking public square

The pattern is now familiar. The Pakistani state has made internet restriction a recurrent instrument of political management: mobile internet are always suspended during protests, platforms including X are blocked, and legislative efforts are repeatedly sought to broaden surveillance and takedown powers.

Human Rights Watch documented the scale and human cost of this policy architecture: “Complete and partial internet shutdowns increased in 2024,” and, according to the same analysis, such shutdowns in 2023 affected almost 83 million Pakistanis, and caused economic loss of $237.6 million to Pakistan’s economy.

These are not abstract inconveniences; they are blanket deprivations of communication, information and the right to organise.

The legal scaffolding is equally troubling. Through amendments to the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (PECA), the creation of new regulatory bodies with scant oversight, and press policies enforced by the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA), the state has moved to legalise a broader architecture of digital control.

As Farieha Aziz, co-founder of the digital rights group Bolo Bhi, put it at the time those rules were debated: “Their goal appears to be complete control over information by the state, and for the state to have total hegemony over information. They want to turn the internet into another PTV.”

That sentence — blunt and deliberate — captures what is at stake when rules meant to combat harm are drafted without safeguards: the risk that regulation becomes a pretext for muzzling dissent.

The human toll: disappearances, abductions and the Wazir cases

Amnesty International’s reporting — covering enforced disappearances, arrests under cyber and public order laws, and violent repression of protest — is stark: by mid-year the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances had received 197 missing-persons cases, while a civil society group recorded 2,332 cases of enforced disappearance across the year.

These figures describe a practice that is systematic rather than sporadic; enforced disappearance is not an afterthought but a method.

There are also emblematic, personal stories that render the policy visible. Independent journalists from Pakistan’s tribal areas have been abducted, reportedly beaten and coerced into silence.

Gohar Wazir, who was kidnapped and later spoke to Radio Mashaal, described his ordeal and its message: “They can kill me at any time,” he said, a sentence that deserves to be quoted in full because it is not theatrical — it is testimony from someone who survived enforced intimidation.

His account of being blindfolded, beaten and forced to record a pledge to stop critical reporting is emblematic of how non-digital and digital repression combine: silencing through physical violence, reinforced by legal and cyber instruments that amplify fear.

From Gwadar to Islamabad, the cumulative effect is the same: civic courage is punished, civic information is constrained and whole communities — whether PTM activists in Pashtun areas or organisers in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir — face both online and offline mechanisms of erasure.

Amnesty and other monitors document arrests, trials in secret military settings, restrictions on assemblies and punitive legal innovation that together hollow out democratic protections.

Pakistan’s 27th Amendment, media blackouts and the compression of debate

The current political moment crystallises the stakes. Proposals tied to the so-called 27th Constitutional Amendment — which, according to reporting, would touch the military command structure and reconfigure judicial and federal balances — have produced a fierce domestic dispute.

The controversy is not merely about institutional mechanics; it is about whether constitutional change will be debated openly or engineered in darkness.

Opposition parties, civil society groups and journalists have warned that rushed amendments and restricted debate undermine democratic legitimacy. The debate has unfolded alongside an environment in which discussion on sensitive topics is routinely narrowed, sometimes through formal PEMRA prohibitions and at other times by the less formal but equally effective practice of a media blackout enforced by informal pressure.

Reports documenting “invisible” blackouts — where channels simply stop covering certain events without public explanation or legal order — suggest a media landscape bent toward self-censorship by design or intimidation.

This is why the censorship of constitutional debate is particularly corrosive. Democracies must tolerate noise and ugly argument; constitutional change divorced from open deliberation and scrutiny is transformation without consent.

When the state uses both legal instruments and extralegal pressure to compress conversation, it does more than limit dissent: it steals democracy’s most basic asset, the right of citizens to contest the rules that govern them.

Europe’s choice: principled pressure or quiet accommodation?

European states and institutions face a choice. They can treat Pakistan’s clampdown as a bilateral stability problem — useful to manage in quiet channels, rewarded with trade, security cooperation and migration-management concessions — or they can treat it as a human-rights crisis requiring visible diplomatic pressure, support for independent media, protection for exiles and tangible consequences for rights-abusing policies.

The current European posture, characterised in too many quarters by hedged statements and low-volume concerns, amounts to tacit accommodation.

That reluctance is understandable in realpolitik terms: Pakistan is strategically situated, hosts vital migration routes and is a partner on counterterrorism. But principled diplomacy is not symbolic theatre; it is a strategic instrument. Democracies that trade away human rights credibility risk exporting impunity.

If European policy is to be more than transactional, it must stop treating digital repression as an internal administrative problem and begin to regard it as a human rights emergency: support for civil society legal defence funds, relocation pathways for threatened journalists, conditionality on technical assistance that might be repurposed for surveillance, and coordinated public naming of abusive practices.

European engagement must also listen to local experts. As digital rights researcher Seerat Khan warned in recent coverage, “These restrictions will only increase. They aren’t something that will go away with time.” That is not gloom; it is a practical forecast.

The trajectory is visible. If democracies fail to address it now, they will have forfeited the influence they most credibly possess: the ability to insist that the technologies, laws and processes of modern governance respect human rights.

A final word: repression seldom announces its endpoint. Legal restrictions harden, media spaces shrink, the line between digital policy and political policing blurs. The abductions, the shutdowns and the censorship of constitutional debate are not isolated incidents.

They are the parts of a coherent strategy that treats information as a security problem rather than a public good. European foreign policy — if it values democracy beyond slogans and press freedom beyond press releases — must stop treating such practices as acceptable collateral to geopolitical concerns.

If Europe remains silent, it is not only failing Pakistanis under threat; it is teaching other regimes that there is no cost to closing digital spaces and disappearing dissidents. And that lesson will be taught elsewhere, too.

Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not reflect Milli Chronicle’s point-of-view.

For the Pashtun people, questioning Pakistan Army’s role and pointing its misconduct in the tribal belt is to invite accusations of treason as the state did with PTM.

Pakistan’s relations with Afghanistan have plunged to their lowest point in years. The recurrent clashes across the Durand Line that divides the two countries are often framed as a dispute over the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a Pashtun Islamist insurgent group which has become Achilles heel for the Pakistani state. But, beneath the surface of this conundrum lies a much older struggle that predates the Taliban and the war on terror. It is the decades long tension between Pashtun nationalism and a Punjabi-dominated Pakistani state.

The TTP is often described purely as an umbrella militant organisation. Yet it represents a fusion of Islamism and ethnic grievance and is a product of decades of marginalisation of the Pashtun heartland by a state that has alternated between military repression and strategic manipulation. To understand why the conflict refuses to end, one must revisit how Pakistan’s power structure was built on the exclusion of its largest ethnic periphery.

Pashtun nationalism did not begin with neither Afghan Taliban nor Pakistan Taliban. Its current incarnation dates to Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, or Bacha Khan, also known as the “Frontier Gandhi,” who led the non-violent Khudai Khidmatgar (“Servants of God”) movement in British India. Bacha Khan, as a staunch secularist as an ideological commitment opposed India’s religion-based partition of 1947. However, when partition became a fait accompli, he, and others in the tribal leadership, demanded that the Pashtuns be allowed the choice of creating their own Pashtunistan (the Bannu Resolution of 21 June 1947).

In the years that followed, Bacha Khan and his followers were vilified, jailed, and banned and their demands for provincial autonomy was branded as treason by the Pakistani state which increasingly became military dominated. This set the template for how the country’s overwhelmingly Punjabi-dominated ruling establishment would treat dissent from the peripheries: with suspicion, suppression, and militarisation.

Despite extreme suppression and oppression, the legacy of Bacha Khan’s peaceful struggle survives to this day through movements like the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) and Awami National Party (ANP) by highlighting Pakistan Army’s misconduct through enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings and sexual violence across the tribal belt.

The PTM’s rallies were filled not with insurgent slogans but with portraits of missing persons, chants for accountability, and the insistence that their blood be valued as much as any Punjabi. While PTM has been proscribed by the Pakistani state and its leaders like Manzoor Pashteen routinely silenced, yet their demands echo the same call made nearly eight decades ago which is that of dignity, rights, and an end to collective punishment.

If history began with exclusion, it was the Pakistani military that institutionalised control. The colonial-era Frontier Crimes Regulations (FCR) that represented a draconian legal code denying tribal residents due process remained in place as recent as 2018. For over seven decades, the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) were governed this FCR that granted local tribal lords with autonomy thereby treating people treated as subjects rather than citizens.

The tragedy of Pakistan’s Pashtuns is that they have been both the sword and the sacrifice of the state being deployed in its proxy wars and displaced in its peace. Their land has been used as a laboratory for proxy wars, their people as cannon fodder for strategic depth. The Pakistani military viewed these borderlands less as communities and more as a strategic buffer.

In the 1980s, during the U.S.-backed Afghan jihad against Soviet forces in Afghanistan, the Pashtun belt was turned into a staging ground for mujahideen recruitment and weapons smuggling. After 2001, it became a battleground again but this time for Pakistan’s ambiguous war on terror. While Islamabad allied with Washington, its intelligence services sheltered the Afghan Taliban, seeing them as a tool of regional influence.

Caught in the crossfire were ordinary Pashtuns. Between 2004 and 2024, according to various estimates including South Asian Terrorism Portal (SATP) and CRSS Annual reports, at least 20,000 Pashtun civilians have been killed in Pakistan Army’s anti-insurgency campaigns and militant violence between 2004 and 2024. Besides, over 4000 people were also killed in hundreds of American drone strikes greenlighted by Pakistan Army according to a report by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism.

Moreover, thousands of people were internally displaced, their homes flattened, family members disappeared, and entire villages across North and South Waziristan were razed under Pakistan Army’s counterterrorism operations like Rah-e-Rast (2009) and Zarb-e-Azab (2014). To this day, thousands remain unaccounted as victims of “enforced disappearances” with Pakistan military and its intelligence agencies as prime accused, with at least 3485 cases reported by the Missing Person’s Commission established by the Supreme Court.

As such, rather than peace, Pakistani state’s reliance on militarisation in the peripheries has only produced alienation. On ground, it reflects in the garrisoning of the Pashtun heartland with checkpoints dotting every artery and locals subjected to random searches and collective reprisals. A generation and two of Pashtuns have grown up knowing only checkpoints, recurrent curfews, and ever-present drones sounds and strikes.

If muscular policy of subjugation in their homeland was not enough, Pashtuns have long been cast as the “other” in Pakistan’s social imagination as ‘rough’ and ‘uncouth’ cousin to the so-called urbane Punjabi. This cultural stereotyping has been deeply ingrained in Pakistani cinema and literature with Pashtuns often portrayed as tribal, backward, and violent. Such characterisation has helped the state justify its decades of systemic exclusion of Pashtuns as well as normalise Pakistan Army’s misconduct.

This is also achieved by domination of the Punjabi elite within the politics and media of the country as well as the officer corps of its powerful army. While Punjab is Pakistan’s largest province by population, comprising 53 percent of its total population, it has a disproportionate share of senior military positions and federal bureaucratic positions with some estimates putting it above 70 percent In contrast, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, including FATA, has been grossly underrepresented in the corridors of power in Islamabad and Rawalpindi with less than 12 percent and 10 percent share in federal bureaucracy and officer corps of armed forces respectively.

The costs of this hierarchy are stark. KPK remains among Pakistan’s poorest provinces, with nearly 30 percent of the population enduring multidimensional poverty, which is nearly double that of Punjab. Literacy among women in former FATA tribal districts hovers below 15 percent, which is nearly three times less than KPK (39 percent) and four times lesser from women in Punjab (58 percent). Infrastructure spending per capita in KPK is a fraction of that in Punjab’s major cities. The region’s development budget has often been slashed to subsidize military operations or bailouts for state-owned enterprises concentrated in Punjab and Sindh.

Such disparities are not accidental function as the political architecture of a state that conflates security with ethnicity. For the Pashtun people, questioning Pakistan Army’s role and pointing its misconduct in the tribal belt is to invite accusations of treason as the state did with PTM. Even the merger of FATA into KPK in 2018 (25^th Amendment), which was hailed as a democratic milestone has changed little on the ground. At best, it remains an annexation on paper rather than empowerment in practice.

Perhaps the darkest face of this militarised policy of the state is the impunity with which Pakistan Army conducts itself across the Pashtun heartland. For Pashtuns, the state’s “war on terror” is simply a war on being who they are and their identity often conflated with extremism and militancy. Islamabad and Rawalpindi never seem to understand that the killing of a family member, an arbitrary arrest or an enforced disappearance and every other misconduct of its military only fuel resentment and rebellion.

Detestably, Pakistan’s Punjabi-centric political and military elite often view Pashtun nationalism as an existential threat with a fear that such calls for justice and accountability might evolve into secession. Yet it is not separatism the demand for equal citizenship that drives the new generation of Pashtuns.

Islamabad’s refusal to reckon with this sentiment carries peril. The more the state relies on coercion, the more it alienates the very population it claims its own. The Afghan frontier may remain under barbed wire and drones, but the deeper frontier of Pakistan’s powerful Punjabi core and its neglected peripheries continue to widen.

Nevertheless, if Pakistan is to find stability, it will need to must start by listening to its margins be it Pashtuns, Baloch, and Sindhis, among others. But that would mean an end to its current policy of militarisation, accountability of its past actions and to the human rights violations of its military, and importantly allowing Pashtun people shape their own governance than dictating it from the garrisons of Peshawar. Until the Pashtun heartland is treated not as a frontier to be controlled but as a homeland to be respected, Pakistan’s both internal and external wars will never truly end.

Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not reflect Milli Chronicle’s point-of-view.

Pakistan ranks among the lowest globally in gender equality, with systemic barriers in education, employment, and political representation.

In the political heart of Europe, behind the sleek glass facade of the European Commission, decisions are made that ripple far beyond the continent. Among these is the Generalized Scheme of Preferences Plus (GSP+), a mechanism that grants developing countries privileged access to European markets.

In return, these nations are expected to uphold human rights, labor protections, environmental safeguards, and good governance.

Since 2014, Pakistan has been one of the principal beneficiaries of GSP+, reaping billions in export earnings each year, primarily through its textile sector.

Yet, the pressing question remains: has Pakistan honored the commitments it made to earn this privileged access? Or has it simply profited while turning its back on the very standards the scheme was designed to reinforce?

At the ongoing 60th Session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, these questions have surfaced again, sharper than ever.

The evidence paints a grim picture of Pakistan’s trajectory—a country that continues to enjoy European trade benefits while deepening its disregard for basic human rights.

The Promise and the Reality

When the EU granted Pakistan GSP+ status in 2014, it was hailed as a win-win agreement. Pakistan gained tariff-free access for most of its exports, and the EU expected genuine reforms in return.

Over the past decade, Pakistan’s exports to the EU have nearly doubled, jumping from €8.3 billion in 2013 to almost €15 billion in 2023.

But the other half of the bargain has collapsed. Pakistan committed to ratify and implement 27 international conventions covering human rights, labor standards, environmental protection, and governance.

While ratification took place on paper, implementation never followed. Instead, Pakistan’s record has deteriorated in critical areas such as religious freedom, gender equality, press freedom, and civil society protections.

Blasphemy Laws and Persecution

Nothing better illustrates Pakistan’s failure than its misuse of blasphemy laws. Introduced under military rule in the 1980s, these laws have been weaponized against Christians, Hindus, Shias, and even Sunni Muslims who fall out of favor with extremists.

The world remembers the case of Asia Bibi, a Christian woman sentenced to death for blasphemy and later acquitted after nearly a decade on death row. But hers is just one story among thousands.

Today, men and women—like Christian couple Shafqat Emmanuel and Shagufta Kausar—remain trapped on death row for similar accusations.

According to human rights groups, dozens of people are killed each year in mob violence linked to blasphemy allegations.

The laws are not just a tool of religious persecution; they are a weapon to settle personal disputes, silence dissent, and terrorize vulnerable communities.

The EU has long had a lever to demand reform: GSP+. Yet, despite two resolutions by the European Parliament calling for suspension of Pakistan’s trade privileges, the European Commission has declined to act.

Each time, the will of parliament was ignored, leaving victims in Pakistan without the support they desperately need.

Women and Girls Left Behind

The situation of women and girls in Pakistan is another glaring violation of GSP+ commitments. Pakistan ranks among the lowest globally in gender equality, with systemic barriers in education, employment, and political representation.

Despite EU funding aimed at improving education access, millions of girls remain out of school, and early marriage rates remain high. In rural areas, entrenched cultural practices deny girls the chance of education altogether.

Reports suggest that part of the funding has even flowed into extremist religious seminaries (madrasas)—institutions known for radicalizing children rather than empowering them.

For women who dare to step into public life, harassment, violence, and exclusion are commonplace. Cases of so-called “honor killings” continue to surface, with perpetrators often going unpunished due to weak enforcement of laws and entrenched patriarchy.

Enforced Disappearances and Suppression of Dissent

Equally troubling is Pakistan’s record of enforced disappearances. Between 2011 and 2023, nearly 10,000 cases were reported, with families left in agonizing uncertainty as activists, journalists, and political dissidents vanished without trace.

Many are believed to be victims of the state’s powerful security apparatus, particularly in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

At the same time, press freedom has been crushed. Pakistan now ranks 150th out of 180 countries on the World Press Freedom Index. Journalists face harassment, censorship, and even abduction.

In 2023, the government imposed a nationwide communication blackout affecting 125 million people, silencing critics during a political crisis.

Civil society organizations are under siege as well, with restrictive laws curbing NGO activity and foreign funding. Those who speak out against the state face intimidation or worse.

Europe’s Complicity

The most scandalous aspect of this story is not just Pakistan’s violations—it is Europe’s complicity. The European Commission has consistently turned a blind eye, issuing assessments that celebrate “awareness raising” instead of demanding real change.

In 2023, the European External Action Service claimed that GSP+ had increased “awareness of human rights at the grassroots level.”

But awareness is not implementation. As one parliamentarian remarked, “This is not about awareness, it is about action.” By accepting cosmetic progress, the Commission risks becoming complicit in Pakistan’s abuses.

Worse still, EU funds directed toward education have indirectly supported madrasas linked to extremism. The Commission admitted that while it funds schools, it does not monitor content.

In practice, this means European taxpayers are subsidizing institutions that teach intolerance, discrimination, and sometimes violent extremism.

The Commonwealth Question

Beyond the EU, Pakistan’s place in the Commonwealth of Nations is also under scrutiny. The country has already been suspended twice from the Commonwealth due to human rights abuses.

With conditions worsening, the question arises: should Pakistan be suspended a third time—or should it be “three strikes and you’re out”?

The Commonwealth prides itself on shared values of democracy and human dignity. If Pakistan flagrantly violates these principles, should it continue to sit at the same table as reformist democracies? The answer, from a moral standpoint, is clear: suspension until meaningful reforms are implemented.

A Question of Integrity

As the European Commission prepares to review Pakistan’s GSP+ status in the coming months, it faces a defining choice. This is not just a question of tariffs and trade. It is a question of Europe’s integrity and moral responsibility.

If Pakistan continues to enjoy tariff-free access while persecuting minorities, silencing dissent, and suppressing women, then the EU is betraying its own values.

The price of this partnership is not counted in euros—it is counted in human lives lost, voices silenced, and communities crushed.

For too long, Europe has hidden behind bureaucratic reports and vague assurances. But now, as evidence mounts, the time has come for decisive action.

The Way Forward

The European Union must now move beyond rhetoric and take decisive steps if it wishes to uphold its own principles. The first and most urgent measure is to suspend Pakistan’s GSP+ status unless clear and verifiable reforms are implemented.

Continued trade privileges should be strictly tied to measurable improvements in human rights, particularly in addressing the misuse of blasphemy laws, advancing gender equality, and ending the practice of enforced disappearances.

Equally critical is ensuring transparency in EU funding. European taxpayers’ money, intended to support education and empowerment, must never be diverted to extremist seminaries that fuel intolerance and radicalization.

Effective monitoring mechanisms are essential so that these resources genuinely promote equality, tolerance, and critical thinking.

At the same time, Europe must stand firmly with Pakistan’s civil society. Human rights defenders, journalists, and NGOs are often the last line of resistance against authoritarian tendencies, and many risk their freedom and their lives in the process. They deserve not only recognition but active support from the international community.

Finally, Pakistan’s place in the Commonwealth of Nations must be reconsidered. Membership in this community of states is a privilege grounded in shared values.

If Pakistan persistently fails to meet even the most basic human rights obligations, it should not enjoy the legitimacy and standing that Commonwealth membership confers. Until it demonstrates genuine commitment to reform, Europe and its allies must be prepared to act.

Pakistan has enjoyed the benefits of Europe’s generosity for over a decade. Its exports have flourished, its economy has been bolstered, and its political elite has celebrated the gains. But for ordinary Pakistanis—religious minorities, women, journalists, dissidents—the promised dividends of GSP+ never arrived.

As a human rights observer, I cannot help but stress: Europe must stop being complicit in Pakistan’s abuses. Trade benefits must not come at the cost of human dignity. The European Union and the Commonwealth alike must show courage, not complacency.

Because at the end of the day, this is not just about trade. This is about the soul of Europe’s values—whether we stand firm for human rights or allow them to be bartered away for economic gain.

If Pakistan will not honor its commitments, then Europe must honor its own.