I had never heard of Ehsan Ali, or the Awami Action Committee, or, to be honest, the region of Pakistan known as Gilgit-Baltistan, where Ehsan Ali is from.
After Ali's arrest, two months ago now, I began to hear from his supporters, who have embarked on a serious campaign to bring international attention to the state repression Ali and the Awami Action Committee are currently facing, with so many of the movement leaders having been jailed, and held in deplorable conditions, with Ali being denied vital medical care.
No one who is protesting and engaging in civil disobedience on behalf of their people's ability to afford to eat should be persecuted like Ali is being persecuted. I was glad to see that people around the world are taking up this cause, and once they brought it to my attention, I wrote this song in the hope that it might help amplify their efforts.
Free Ehsan Ali
He grew up in the valley of Aliabad
In a country we know of as Pakistan
At the crossroads, of the planet Earth
What they call Gilgit-Baltistan
There among the mountains
What has sovereignty meant
People asked is this freedom
Where our independence went?
Ehsan Ali had talked among
Folk of many different sorts
Sunnis, Shias, leftists, nationalists
Judges in the courts
They shut down the highway and the shops
To demand controls on the price of wheat
Three people were killed but they won
For the IMF, a defeat
To defend the people's rights
They formed a committee
Led by a man known as Ehsan Ali
They organized against the land grabs
Against the colonial methods at play
Against those who sought to turn
Their mountains into, profits for the day
So it was wheels jammed, shutters down
Across religion, politics class
The committee organized
So these policies would not pass
Chorus
The Committee won the fight
Back then the state pulled back
But now as we face all the shocks
From the American attack
People have to fight to eat again
And from the top came the decision
Arrest the leaders now
And put them all in prison
Chorus
Now Ehsan Ali is being held
Without urgent medical care
He’s sick with pneumonia
They say that he should die in there
Shutting down his voice is not
Just about his neighbors and friends
It’s about solidarity around the world
On which his life depends
Chorus
