Washington, DC – The Muttahida Quami Movement USA (MQM USA) held a rally here on Saturday, June 19 – including a peaceful demonstration in front of the White House and the State Department – to protest against the continued oppression of the Mohajir (Muslim immigrants from India) community by Pakistan’s ISI. MQM USA’s central organizer Matloob Zaidi led the rally. This was followed by an annual convention held in Springfield Virginia on June 20th which included a speech by the MQM’s founder and leader, Mr. Altaf Hussain.
Participants in the rally reiterated their demands of the right of self-determination under the UN Human Rights Charter, and freedom of Sindh from Pakistan and its brutal establishment. MQM seeks to send a United Nations team to Sindh to speak with Mohajirs and oppressed Sindhis, and intervene to put an end to the continued human rights violations, including forced disappearances, political victimization, and extra judicial killings.
In a recent incident MQM worker Shahid Aziz died in the custody of police and para military Rangers in Karachi Central Jail as a result of torture by government officials. This is one of the many hundreds of incidents of the ISI’s atrocities and brutality against the Mohajir community in Pakistan, particularly in the urban areas of the Pakistani province of Sindh.
MQM’s demands include putting an end to Chinese colonization, stopping the spread of Islamic extremism in the South Asia region by the Pakistani Army and ISI, and stopping the ethnic cleansing of the Mohajir community.
The MQM is a political party in Pakistan. The All Pakistan Muhajir Student Organization (APMSO), which was founded in 1978 by Altaf Hussain, led to the birth of the Mohajir Qaumi Movement in 1984. In 1997, the MQM officially removed the term Mohajir from its name and replaced it with Muttahida (United). On June 19, 1992 Pakistani military launched an operation against MQM in Karachi.
