Mahrang Baloch responds to reports about her nomination for Nobel Peace Prize

Dr. Mahrang Baloch, a leading Baloch rights activist in Pakistan, has said she has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, the most prestigious prize in the world that recognizes peace efforts.

Baloch leads the Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC), a human rights movement based in Balochistan that has led protests and sit-ins in the province, and organized marches to the federal capital, Islamabad, against alleged enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, and other human rights abuses. She became an activist after her father’s abduction and eventual death in 2011.

“Media personnel have been reaching out to me about this news, and I can confirm that it is true,’ Baloch wrote on X in response to a tweet about her being nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

“I am deeply honored by this nomination, but it is not about me. It is about the thousands of Baloch who have been forcibly disappeared and the families demanding justice. The fight for human rights in Balochistan must not be ignored by global civil society and civilized nations.”

Nobel Prize nominations are strictly kept a secret but several Norwegian parliamentarians and other academics are privileged to publicly announce their preferred candidates each year to raise publicity both for the nominee and the nominator.