Manzoor Pashteen

Manzoor Ahmad Pashteen (Pashto: منظور احمد پښتين, Urdu: منظور احمد پشتین) is a Pakistani Pashtun human rights activist from South Waziristan.

He is chairman of the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement ("Pashtun Protection Movement", PTM), a social movement based in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan.

From 11 to 14 March 2022, he was part of the Pashtun National Jirga, which was held in Bannu to discuss the critical issues faced by the Pashtuns in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The region has been a war zone since the 1980s, since the Cold War between the Soviet Union and United States and the following conflict between western and Islamist forces.

Pashteen was born in 1994 in Shahur (or Shaheer), Mawle Khan Sarai, a small village near the town of Sarwakai in South Waziristan, Pakistan.

The eldest of eight siblings, Pashteen belongs to the Shamankhel Mahsud tribe of the Pashtuns.

His father, Abdul Wadud Mahsud, is a primary school teacher at his village.

Pashteen received his early education at his village's school in South Waziristan.

In 2005, because of military operations by the Pakistan Armed Forces against militants, Pashteen and his family were forced to flee Waziristan to settle in IDP refugee camps in Dera Ismail Khan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The family fled from their home in Waziristan for the second time in 2007, and returned in 2008, but fled again in 2008 due to Operation Zalzala.

In 2009, because of Operation Rah-e-Nijat, he and his family were forced to flee Waziristan for the fourth time.

Pashteen completed his secondary education at Army Public School in Bannu and higher secondary education in Karak.

His father was determined to ensure his education.

"Only I know", Pashteen said, "my father borrowed money for my schooling and only I know how much we have suffered".

In May 2014, during his studies at the Gomal University, Pashteen founded the "Mahsud Tahafuz Movement", a social movement mainly focused on removing landmines from Waziristan (especially Mahsud land).

The Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (Movement for the Protection of Pashtuns, PTM) campaigns against war, blaming both Islamist militants and the Pakistani military for the destruction.

Pashteen received his Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree in 2016 at the Gomal University, Dera Ismail Khan.

When he and his family returned to Waziristan in 2016, they found that their books had been looted, their home ruined, and landmines were scattered over their lands.

On 5 September 2017, Pashteen and his father, along with two other human rights activists, Jamal Malyar and Shah Faisal Ghazi, were detained by Pakistani security forces at Barwand check post in Tiarza Tehsil, South Waziristan.

Pashteen was beaten up under the allegation that his human rights campaign damaged military morale.

“I said, you are building your morale by killing innocent children and then calling us terrorists,” Pashteen later told.

As a result of the social media campaign for them by their supporters, they were released on 6 September by the military.

The PTM rose to prominence after Naqeebullah Mehsud, accused of militant connections, was killed by police in Karachi on 20 January 2018.

Human rights groups note that the war on terrorism has served as a pretense for authorities to persecute Pashtuns, with thousands of young Pashtuns like Mehsud killed or abducted by authorities on shaky charges.

Due to their dominance of the Taliban, Pashtuns overall have been branded as Islamists or militants.

On January 26, 2018, Pashteen and 20 friends started a protest march from Dera Ismail Khan.

Many people joined the march along the way, and it reached Peshawar on January 28.

Upon reaching Islamabad on February 1, the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement organized a sit-in called "All Pashtun National Jirga".

The jirga condemned the fake encounter killing of Naqeebullah Mehsud, a 27-year old Pashtun shopkeeper from Waziristan, perpetrated by the Karachi Police under Rao Anwar Ahmed Khan.

Among other demands, the jirga also appealed the government to set up a judicial inquiry for Naqeebullah Mehsud, as well as for all the other Pashtuns murdered extrajudicially in police encounters.

On 13 March 2018 Human Rights Watch seconded the call to investigate Mehsud's killers and called on the Pakistani government to drop criminal cases against Manzoor Pashteen and other protest leaders.

There was grand gathering of PTM in the center of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Peshawar on 8 April 2018.

The PTM demands an end to the extrajudicial killings and disappearances, and what they allege to be the Pakistani military establishment's policy of labeling Taliban groups as either "good" or "bad" depending on whether they support the state of Pakistan.

A PTM official accused both state institutions and the 'good Taliban' of threatening the PTM.

They also demand removal of landmines from northwestern tribal areas, and that the army cease demolishing houses of Pashtuns accused of militant ties.

In 2019, following the Kharqamar incident, a clash on 26 May between PTM supporters and Pakistani troops that left at least 13 dead, Pashteen spoke to Deutsche Welle in an interview.

He accused authorities of firing on demonstrators and suppressing media reports, as well as attempting to rig elections in tribal areas where PTM candidates were likely to win.

He denied anti-state and anti-Pakistan sentiment, saying that the PTM is anti-terrorism, while accusing the army of involvement in such activities.

On 27 January 2020, Pashteen was arrested by the police in Peshawar on allegations of sedition.

The arrest was criticized by then Afghan President Ashraf Ghani.