Content warning: this article contains mentions of self-harm.
On December 22, the body of 37-year-old human rights activist and U of T student Karima Mehrab ― also known as Karima Baloch ― was found near the Toronto waterfront after she had gone missing the day before.
Mehrab, who started a degree at U of T in fall 2020, was from the western province of Balochistan in Pakistan and was an advocate of the region’s independence. Named one of the BBC’s 100 most inspirational and influential women, Mehrab had been living in exile in Canada after fleeing Pakistan in 2016 — fearing for her safety as she described being the constant target of Pakistani authorities due to her beliefs.
Toronto police have said that they do not suspect foul play in her death; however, her family and a wider group of human rights activists have been calling on the Canadian government to further investigate her death.
Mehrab’s life
The largest of four provinces and rich with natural resources, Balochistan has been the centre of a decades-long independence movement in Pakistan. Thousands of people have been protesting and coming together about the situation in Balochistan under organizations such as the Baloch Students Organization (BSO), of which Mehrab was the first woman chair, to raise awareness and put an end to the Pakistani government’s persecution of the Baloch people. They also hope to draw attention to the pattern of enforced disappearances among the Baloch people.
Mehrab and her family had been constant targets of harassment and persecution by the Pakistani authorities. Her house was targeted by the military, and a few months after she came to Canada, her uncle was abducted, and she was asked to stop her work and return to Pakistan in exchange for his release. Her uncle was later found dead.
The threats and harassment did not stop when she arrived in Canada, however. A few weeks before her death, she received multiple threatening messages asking her to return to Pakistan and surrender. “Three leaders of BSO were abducted in Karachi in Pakistan, and from their mobile phones, the abductors took Karima’s WhatsApp number,” said Lateef Johar, a member of the BSO and friend of Mehrab. “I was with her here in Canada. They asked her to go to Pakistan and surrender to them.”
Additionally, after Mehrab claimed asylum, an investigation was launched on her in Canada because of her connection with BSO, which is a banned organization in Pakistan.
On the day of her disappearance, “she said she wanted to visit the doctor and walk back, but she never came,” Sameer Mehrab, Karima’s brother, said in an interview with The Varsity. Sameer, also an activist and a student at U of T, pointed out that Karima’s case mirrors other disappearances of Baloch activists. In March of last year, his friend and activist Sajid Hussein also went missing, and his body was found two months later in a river in Uppsala, Sweden.
Although there is no evidence as of now to suggest that Karima’s disappearance and death was orchestrated, the kidnapping and disappearance of Baloch activists is an issue that she had been fighting against through her work, and the similarity in the different cases has prompted people to demand further investigation into her death.
Responses, calls for investigation
“We are asking the Canadian government to do a better investigation to find out [what happened to her],” Johar said. “The police are saying that it might be self-harm, but we don’t really believe it could be self-harm.”
“I will not go with this narrative that the Canadian government still doesn’t know what’s [been] happening in Balochistan for the last 20 years,” Sameer said, noting that the Canadian mining company Barrick Gold, founded by Peter Munk — who patronized U of T’s school of global affairs — operates in Balochistan.
Barrick Gold was involved in a court case against Pakistan and was awarded $5.8 billion in damages over a disputed mining license in 2019. “I’m not sure how you justify that you’re mining on our land with the help of Pakistan, and you’re benefiting, Pakistan is benefiting, and Pakistan is slaughtering our people,” Sameer said.
“The public can claim that they are not educated about Karima and about Balochistan, but U of T cannot claim that,” said Sameer. “A member of U of T was persecuted… at least U of T should talk about it and condemn what is going on with our people and what Karima went through.”
The dean of Woodsworth College, where Karima was a student, released a statement on January 12 about her death. The statement reads, “She was a highly engaged student with a deep commitment to her community and a global reputation for her political activism and human rights campaigns. Karima was also an inspiration to many within our university and well beyond.”
“We know that Karima’s passing has affected many people within our community,” a university spokesperson wrote to The Varsity. The spokesperson did not respond to a question on whether the university planned to make any additional statements about her death.
To people like Johar and Sameer, Karima’s death adds to the growing wounds that they’ve been experiencing all their lives. “I don’t know anyone in my generation who died a natural death,” said Sameer. “And when they go, they take a part of your life. The rest of the community who survived this trauma is devastated.”
However, they plan to keep fighting. Sameer concluded, “Neutrality will only enhance the powerful.”
Editor’s note (January 25): This article has been updated to correct that Mehrab’s body was found the day after she went missing.
