QUETTA: Baluch students and youths protested in multiple cities and towns in Baluchistan and in Pakistan's commercial capital of Karachi Sunday against the terror trial of two Baluch activists Hyrbyair Marri and Faiz Baluch in London.

“Protests were held all over Baluchistan,†Majeed Baluch, a member of the Baloch Human Rights Council, said from Muscat, Oman—a Gulf nation with significant Baluch population. The Baloch Students Organization (Azad), organized the rallies.

Marri and Baluch were arrested in a secret deal by the British government to have Rashid Rauf, a Briton of Pakistani origin, extradited to the U.K.

Rauf. a relative of terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed leader Masood Azhar, was allegedly involved in a conspiracy to blow up western airliners flying to the U.S. from Europe over the Atlantic.

Rauf mysteriously escaped from a jail in Islamabad last year.

Marri and Baloch had tried to organize the Baluch against the atrocities of the Pakistan army in Baluchistan. The Baluch accuse Pakistan army of Nazi-style brutalities against them in five military operations in the last six decades.

At the protest rally in Karachi Sunday, a girl protester Maheen Baloch said every nation has the right to freedom under the United Nations charter. “Why can't the Baluch enjoy the same rights?†she asked.

She deplored Baluch villages were being bombed by fighter jets supplied to the Pakistan army by Pentagon.

“The United Kingdom is a democratic country and talks about human rights, how has it put on trial two defenders of Baluch human rights,†she questioned in a live interview with the Sweden-based Baluchi Radio channel Gwank from the protest venue in front of the Karachi Press Club

This is the first time in Baluch history girls and women have taken to streets of Pakistan. As many as 900 activists remain missing in Baluchistan and 600 are still languishing in Pakistani jails, according to Ghulam Mohammed Baloch, president of the Baluchistan National Movement.

In Iran too, Baluch face public hangings at the hands of the Islamic regime.

Baluchistan, named after the ethnic Baluch people in southwest Asia, is a Texas-sized stateless region divided among Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan.

Marris' brother Bala'ach Marri was allegedly killed by the Pakistan army in November last year in Sarlath area.

Twice-premier Benazir Bhutto had visited with his father Nawab Khair Bakhsh Marri to condole the death, inviting the ire of Pakistan military generals. Bhutto herself was killed on December 27 last year.

Samad Baloch, a leader of the B.H.R.C. in London, has accused the Pakistani military of using phosphorous bombs to bomb Baluch villages in the Marri and Bugti areas, strongholds of resistance Pakistan military.

Recent Pakistani Press reports have suggested kidnapped Baluch women are being forced into sexual slavery. Pakistan military has routinely used rape and sodomy against the Baluch resistance.

In spring this year, Pakistani soldiers burned alive three Baluch tribesmen, loyal to resistance leader Nawabzada Brahamdagh Bugti, grandson of former governor and chief minister of Baluchistan, Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti.

Earlier on January 2, 2005 a woman doctor Shazia Khalid was raped in the Sui area in Baluchistan. Nawab Bugti, 80, rose up in arms against the rape and the aging leader along with nearly three dozen of his supporters were killed in army bombing in the Bhanbore area of Baluchistan in August 2006.

Former military coup leader-turned-president General Pervez Musharraf defended the rapist Captain Hammad and congratulated the Pakistani soldiers who killed Bugti.

The prosecution tried to link Marri and Baluch, both secular nationalist leaders with the Taliban movement, said Maheen Baloch.

The American Friends of Baluchistan described Marri and Baloch as foot soldiers in the war against religious extremism and bigotry promoted by Islamabad. It hoped the British authorities under Prime Minister Gordon Brown would come out of its Victorian age mindset.

“Those were the days when Victorian queens used Pomeranian puppies for hygiene as they could not take regular a shower because of the extreme cold. This is an age when all secular forces should unite against Al Qaeda,†said Mohammed Ali Baloch, an A.F.B. leader.

Maheen Baluch regretted that the trial of Marri and Baloch showed the U.K. Government was colluding with Pakistan army in its human rights violations in Baluchistan. “Britain I not lagging behind Pakistan when it comes to Baluchistan,†she said.

International human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell Sunday deplored the continuation of the politically motivated terror trial against Marri and Baloch in spite of lack of any real evidence.

The trial will expose high level collusion between the British government and the agents of the former Pakistani dictator, Pervez Musharraf, said Tatchell, who is a personal friend and political ally of the two defendants.

He stood bail for Baluch.

"These men were framed by the Musharraf regime, to silence their highly effective campaigning against Pakistani human rights abuses in Baluchistan," added Tatchell.

He accused the U.K. authorities of conduct unbecoming of a civilized European power.

"The British government was blackmailed into arresting them. Musharraf's agents issued an ultimatum to the U.K. authorities: arrest these men or we will halt all cooperation in the war on terror. The Labor government caved in to these demands from Musharraf's dictatorship. It decided these men were expendable for the so-called greater good of anti-terrorist cooperation with the Pakistani regime," said Tatchell.

Marri and Baluch are accused by London of preparing acts of terrorism abroad - charges they strenuously deny. Both men have been law-abiding citizens. They fled to Britain to escape persecution by the former military coup leader and tyrant, General Pervez Musharraf.

Marri is a former MP and government minister in the regional assembly of Baluchistan - an independent state, until 1948.

Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan and the Asian Human Rights Commission have documented and condemned severe and widespread human rights abuses by the Pakistani armed forces in Baluchistan - abuses that amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, including the indiscriminate bombing of civilian areas and the systemic use of torture. In one of the most gruesome recent abuses, human rights campaigners allege that Pakistani soldiers boiled to death four Baloch prisoners in April this year.

Marri's father is a renowned Baluch national leader, attended Queen Elizabeth II's coronation in 1953 as a guest of the British government, Tatchell said.

The elder Marri has stubbornly resisted any deal with Islamabad and has thrown the gauntlet at the Pakistan army twice in the last four decades

Marri and Baluch, were arrested by police in London last December. Marri spent four months in Belmarsh high security prison, and Baluch eight months.

"The police and security agencies in the UK have pursued these terror charges based on evidence provided to them by Musharraf's dictatorship - a dictatorship that the arrested men campaigned against," said Tatchell.

"Marri and Baluch have been set up by Musharraf's agents because of their highly effective exposure of Pakistan's war crimes and crimes against humanity in annexed Baluchistan," Tatchell said.

"Our government has ignored the fact that Musharraf's henchmen in the Pakistani intelligence agency, the ISI, are notorious for framing political opponents, especially Baluch nationalists.

"This belief has been reinforced by the acting Interior Minister of the new democratic government of Pakistan, Rehman Malik. He recently announced that terror charges against Marri in Pakistan have been dropped; stating that the case against him had been politically motivated. This discredits the whole basis on which Marri and Baluch have been charged in London.

"Marri and Baluch's arrest came just a few months after Musharraf demanded that the British government arrest Baluch activists in London. In exchange, Musharraf offered to hand over Rashid Rauf, implying that action against the Baluch activists was a precondition for surrendering Rauf to the U.K.

Rauf is wanted in this country in connection with the 2006 Islamic terror plot involving liquid explosives on trans-Atlantic airliners, which resulted in the conviction of three men in London in September. He is also sought in connection with a murder in the U.K.

"Prior to Marri's arrest, Musharraf's regime made repeated representations to the U.K. government that he was wanted on terrorism charges in Pakistan - charges that have now been dropped by the Pakistani authorities.

"Soon after Musharraf met Gordon Brown at Downing Street in January this year, he held a press conference for Pakistani journalists where he allegedly denounced Marri as a terrorist and praised the British government and police for cooperating with his regime.

"Claims of connivance are credible. For nine years, the U.K.'s Labor government supported Musharraf's dictatorship politically, economically and militarily, despite him having overthrown Pakistan's democratically-elected government in 1999. Labor sold him military equipment that his army uses to kill innocent Baluch people. The US supplies the F-16 fighter jets and Cobra attack helicopters that are used to bomb and strafe villages.

"Marri is an unlikely terrorist. He is a former Baluchistan MP (1997-2002), and was the Minster for Construction and Works in the provincial assembly in 1997-1998. He fled to Britain in 2000, fearing arrest, torture and possible assassination by Musharraf's men.

"The arrest of Marri -- together with the murder of one brother and the attempt to frame another brother -- looks like a systematic attempt to target his family and crush three leading voices of Baloch dissent.

"The Asian Human Rights Commission reports that Pakistani army raids have resulted in 3,000 Baluch people dead, 200,000 displaced and 4,000 arrested. Thousands more have simply disappeared," said Tatchell.

Marri is represented by Henry Blaxland QC and Jim Nichol of TV Edwards Taylor Nichol solicitors (020 7272 8336) and Baluch is represented by Helena Kennedy QC and Gareth Peirce of Birnberg Peirce solicitors (020 7911 0166).

Prominent civil liberties lawyer Sajida Malik is also on the defence panel for Baluch.

"A former British Protectorate, Baluchistan secured its independence in 1947, alongside India and Pakistan, but was invaded and forcibly annexed by Pakistan in 1948. The Baluch people did not vote for incorporation. They were never given a choice. Ever since, Baluchistan has been under military occupation by Islamabad. Baloch demands for a referendum on self-rule have been rejected. Democratically elected Baloch leaders who have refused to kow-tow to Pakistan's subjugation have been arrested, jailed and murdered," said Tatchell.