Urgent Action Outcome: Activist returned to Pakistan and released

On 8 March 2020, the Bahrain authorities forcefully returned Geelaman Pashteen a Pashtun human rights activist and supporter of Pakistan’s Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM) to Pakistan. Geelaman Pashteen was later released.

NO FURTHER ACTION IS REQUESTED. MANY THANKS TO ALL WHO SENT APPEALS.

On 8 March 2020, the Bahrain authorities forcefully returned Hazrat Naeem Abdul Qayum, also known as Geelaman Pashteen to Pakistan where he was detained upon arrival then later released. By 28 March 2020, he was using his Twitter account again.

On 6 February 2020, Bahraini security forces arrested Geelaman Pashteen, a poet and human rights activist who resided and worked in Bahrain, based on an Interpol Red Notice. 

A supporter of Pakistan’s Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM), he has been peacefully calling for equality and justice for human rights violations against the Pashtun community in Pakistan and for the release of Manzoor Pashteen, a leader of the PTM, who was arrested and detained on 27 January 2020 under draconian colonial-era laws, including for “sedition”, for a speech he gave criticizing the Pakistan military.

In 2019, the Pakistani authorities intensified their crackdown on the PTM, which campaigns against human rights abuses – arresting and arbitrarily detaining dozens of its supporters, subjecting them to surveillance, intimidation, prosecution and violence leading to multiple deaths, solely for their peaceful exercise of their human rights.