ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Senator Farhatullah Babar said on Friday that there is a need to create an intellectual infrastructure and a space for freedom of expression and tolerance for dissent more than military operations to defeat extremism.
Taking part in the discussion of an adjournment motion on extremist ideology in the Senate, the senator said that distortion of history had undermined the building of intellectual infrastructure in the country.
He said that a military dictator quietly deleted from the Objectives Resolution in the Constitution the word ‘freely’ with respect to rights of minorities to profess their religion. Diaries of the Quaid were forged to make people believe that the Quaid wanted a presidential and not a parliamentary form of government, he said.
History books teach children that the history of Sindh began with Muhammad bin Qasim’s arrival and while Sultan Mahmood Ghaznavi is eulogized as a great ghazi driven by religious zeal to destroy Hindu temples, he added.
The PPP senator said that falsehood and distortion of history had undermined the country’s educational and intellectual infrastructure, adding that it was no surprise that so-called educated people were involved in cases of Mashal Khan, Noreen Leghari, attackers of opposition leader in Sindh Assembly and Safoora Goth incident.
When armed conflict is glorified in the name of religion the result is violence in the name of religion, he said.
Babar called for the promotion of freedom of expression to build a genuine intellectual infrastructure and creating an alternative narrative to that of the militants and extremists.
He said that Pakistan Electronic Crimes Act had been used to punish bloggers and political activists dissenting with the state narrative but had not been used to stop hate speech and sectarian violence.
He also called for the biannual report of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on the implementation of law to be placed before the parliament. He said that the interior minister had promised to present it before the house over a month ago but it had not been done yet.
