Daily Times

Social activist Raza Mahmood Khan has returned after being missing for seven months. The Aghaz-i-Dosti convener was picked up on December 2, 2017. His crime? Working for peace between India and Pakistan.

Was Raza’s work more frightening for our state than actual terrorists? It seems so. Raza’s release comes after months of campaigning by his family and friends. His name is another in a long list of activists who have been subjected to enforced disappearances.

Known terrorists can contest elections in Pakistan, but activists that are working for peace will disappear into not-so-thin air. Even as we celebrate Raza’s return, another activist in Balochistan has gone missing — and that is just a case we know about, many disappear to never be heard from again, but news of their abduction never makes headlines.

These activists are not disappearing because they pose a legitimate, violent threat to the country. Gtheir fault is that they dare to see beyond the conventions and narratives that we have set for the country.

Each time an activist is recovered we feel temporary relief. But those that return are never the same. Our brightest have in the past left the country for their own safety — and no one can blame them.

No one wants to end up like Zeenat Shahzadi, whose brother ended up taking his own life because of her prolonged abduction, her family ripped apart forever.

No one wants to be like the bloggers who were picked up last year and many of whom had to leave the country. Salman Haider, Waqas Goraya and Aasim Saeed left the country and trying to make sense of their lives. No Pakistani deserves this for holding a political opinion that is not officially approved.

And finally, no one wants to be Raza — the shadow of a man who has returned after seven months. Does he still have a voice? It’s too early to tell. But is it worth raising a voice? The answer to that is the most daunting, and it something we already know all too well. *

Published in Daily Times, July 21^st 2018.