- PPP chief calls for fighting discrimination against women and minorities
Former president Asif Ali Zardari has said that treading in the footsteps of Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (ZAB), who rejected appeasement which could have saved his life, the PPP workers ‘reject policy of appeasement and vow to fight the forces of regression, bigotry and intolerance and not permit any one foist their regressing political agenda through force’.
In a message on the eve of the 35th martyrdom anniversary of party’s founder ZAB on Thursday, Zardari said, “We must confront and not fear the bigots, the militants and the zealots. Only then we will be able to rebuild our lives; only then we will be able to live in dignity and honour and in peace and progress.”
Rejecting extremism, he said that in plurality lay the strength of the country and called for fighting discrimination against women, minorities and the marginalised behind the façade of religion.
Paying tributes to the founding chairman for giving the unanimous Constitution, Zardari said that the self-sustaining power of the Constitution was demonstrated a few years ago when it was purged of the changes made by successive dictators thereby disallowing dictatorship to take root.
‘”Today the power and resilience of the Constitution is at play yet again as a dictator who sought to subvert it is chased and made accountable,” he said.
ZAB’s life was cut down in his prime by those who feared him most through a macabre conspiracy hatched by some generals and judges of the time, he said.
“Those very cowards, pygmies, dictators and political orphans who conspired to eliminate him fear him even more while in grave.”
He recalled the words of his wife Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto, “By signing the death sentence, the conspirators hanged themselves and were forever condemned at the bar of history.”