Political party Awami Workers Party | Party Awami Workers Party | |
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Baba Jan is a prisoner of conscience and Leftist political activist in the Gilgit-Baltistan administrative territory of Pakistan. He is the former vice-president and now member of the Federal Committee of Awami Workers Party. His hometown is Nasirabad in the Hunza Valley.
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Incarceration
Baba Jan is currently serving a lifetime prison sentence after being convicted by an anti-terrorism court of participating in a protest against killing of a disaster-affected man and his son by police on August 11, 2011 at Aliabad Hunza. A massive landslide on 4 January, 2010 hit Attabad village and blocked Hunza River, forming a 23 km lake which submerged several villages and left over 1,000 people homeless. Baba Jan organized the displaced people to lobby the government for compensation and rehabilitation. While several families were compensated, some 25 families had still not been compensated. On 11 August 2011, some of those families protested by blocking Karakoram Highway (KKH) on which the then Chief Minister of Gilgit-Baltistan Syed Mehdi Shah was due to travel. Police fired teargas and gunshots to disperse the protesters for the Chief Minister's convoy, killing a man and his son. When news of the killings spread through the Hunza Valley, angry protests erupted in many towns in which a number of government buildings and police stations were torched.
Baba Jan was subsequently arrested and tortured, and charged under the Anti-Terrorism Act. In September 2011, an anti-terrorism court sentenced him and eleven other activists to life imprisonment. Human rights organizations have demanded Baba Jan's release, and an international petition for his release has been signed by Noam Chomsky, Tariq Ali, David Graeber, and several others. During his time in prison, it has been reported that Baba Jan has been involved in organizing prisoners and promoting sectarian tolerance between Sunnis and Shias.
Participation in Elections
Despite his incarceration, he contested for a seat in the 2015 Gilgit-Baltistan Legislative Assembly elections as the Awami Workers Party's candidate for Constituency GBLA-6. He came in second place, losing out to Mir Ghazanfar Ali Khan of Hunza's ruling family, who was backed by the party of Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif, the Pakistan Muslim League (N). However Baba Jan garnered more votes than the other mainstream parties, including the Pakistan Peoples Party and the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf.
In November 2015, Mir Ghazanfar Ali Khan was appointed by the Pakistani prime minister as the Governor of Gilgit-Baltistan, which made the GBLA-6 seat vacant. The by-election for the seat has been scheduled for 28 May 2016 and the Awami Workers Party announced that Baba Jan would again be its candidate for the constituency. On 30 April 2016, the returning officer rejected his nominations papers on the grounds that he was a convicted person serving a jail sentence. However, on 4 May 2016, a court accepted an appeal filed by Baba Jan's lawyers against the rejection of his nomination papers.
The supreme appellate court of Gilgit-Baltistan postponed the election for a period of three weeks to complete hearing of two cases pending charged against Baba Jan. The supreme appellate court uphold the decision previously made by Anti-Terrorism court. Baba Jan is now out of the race of by-elections in Hunza.
