Pakistan Feature: A Tribute to Activist Irfan Ali, Killed by Thursday's Bombs (Mackey)

Irfan Ali, in glasses, taking part in a demonstration in Islamabad in September

See also Pakistan News: 114 Killed in Thursday Bombings

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On Thursday bomb attacks by insurgent and separatist Baluch groups in the Pakistani cities of Quetta and Mingora killed at least 115 people. Among the dead in Quetta was Irfan Ali, a prominent human rights activist.

Shortly after the first bomb struck a local snooker hall, Ali tweeted that he had narrowly escaped harm. When the second bomb exploded, timed to hit rescue workers who had arrived on the scene, Ali was killed as he helped those injured by the first blast.

Ali’s death sparked an outpouring of grief and anger, as well as tributes to a life supporting human rights causes, across Twitter and the Internet.

"I am born to fight for human rights & peace. My religion is respect and love all the religions." -@khudiali, RIP twitter.com/ShirazHassan/s…

— Shiraz Hassan (@ShirazHassan) January 10, 2013

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Pakistan Feature: The Secret, Dirty War in Balochistan (Walsh)

The bodies surface quietly, like corks bobbing up in the dark. They come in twos and threes, a few times a week, dumped on desolate mountains or empty city roads, bearing the scars of great cruelty. Arms and legs are snapped; faces are bruised and swollen. Flesh is sliced with knives or punctured with drills; genitals are singed with electric prods. In some cases the bodies are unrecognisable, sprinkled with lime or chewed by wild animals. All have a gunshot wound in the head.

This gruesome parade of corpses has been surfacing in Balochistan, Pakistan's largest province, since last July. Several human rights groups, including Amnesty International, have accounted for more than 100 bodies --- lawyers, students, taxi drivers, farm workers. Most have been tortured. The last three were discovered on Sunday.

If you have not heard of this epic killing spree, though, don't worry: neither have most Pakistanis.

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