Pakistani rights activists denounce disappearances

ISLAMABAD, Dec 9 (Reuters) Pakistani human rights activists protested in the capital, Islamabad, today to demand action over what they said was the disappearance of hundreds of government opponents.

International human rights groups say several hundred Pakistanis have gone missing, many apparently taken into detention in connection with the war on terrorism.

Pakistani rights groups say journalists and activists linked to autonomy-seeking nationalist groups in places such as the troubled southwestern province of Baluchistan have also been victims of ''enforced disappearances''.

''Every week, we are getting something like three new incidents ... We have been able to verify, to date, 250 people -- from 2002 up 'til now,'' Asma Jahangir, head of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, told Reuters at the rally.

Several relatives of missing people joined dozens of rights activists for the protest outside parliament.

''Uncle president please find my loving daddy,'' read a placard held by 10-year-old Ayesha, whose father has been missing since last year.

Some protesters chanted ''Stop state-terrorism'' and ''Free the innocents''. Police looked on but there was no trouble.

An activist from Baluchistan province, where nationalist militants are waging a low-key insurgency for more political and economic rights, said the situation there was grave.

''People have been missing for three to four years. They have neither been produced before the courts nor allowed to see their family,'' said Zahoor Ahmed Shinwari.

The government denies violating human rights in Baluchistan or elsewhere.

A British girl at the centre of an international custody dispute between her Scottish mother and Pakistani father, joined the demonstrators.

''I know how it feels for people losing their families,'' said the girl, 12-year-old Molly Campbell.

''I know how it feels when kids suffer,'' said Campbell, known by her Pakistani family as Misbah Irum Ahmed.

She wants to stay in Pakistan with her father despite legal efforts by her Scottish mother to have her sent back to Britain.

REUTERS AB VV1718