President Zardari for promoting inter-faith harmony

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Renewing commitment to protect the rights of non-Muslims as equal citizens of Pakistan, President Asif Ali Zardari has urged the religious leaders and public at large to imbibe the value of tolerance towards people of different faiths and to also spread the message of harmony and tolerance. “We are living in times of great intolerance. The intolerance towards non-Muslims has spread to sectarianism,” President Zardari said in his message on the occasion of “Minorities Day” observed every year in the country on August 11. He said the observance of “Minorities Day” every year “is a reminder to us all to strive to fulfill the promise made to our non-Muslim brethren by the founder of the state Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah on the very inception of the state.” The President recognized and appreciated the important role played by the non-Muslims in the nation-building process as well as the sacrifices rendered by them, and called for focussing on the problems and issues faced by them. “Let us on this day also pay tribute to those courageous individuals who have suffered for the cause of inter-faith harmony and for upholding the right of the non-Muslims freely to profess and practice their religion. They are the heroes and heroines of the nation. They reflect the progressive, tolerant and humane ethos of our people,” he said. The President said that democracies better protect the rights of non Muslims, adding, unfortunately the right of the non-Muslims freely to profess and practice their religion was abridged during a dictatorship by deleting the word ‘freely’ from the Constitution. He, however, maintained that it was a matter of great satisfaction that the right to ‘freely’ profess religion by every citizen had been restored in the 18th Constitutional Amendment. The President said there was a need to protect and promote democratic values and culture as a necessary tool of promoting tolerance, peace and harmony by ending extremism, intolerance and sectarianism. “On this day let us rededicate ourselves to the ideal of a modern, progressive and tolerant Pakistan that was enunciated by Quaid-e-Azam in his historic speech on this day,” he added. The President while felicitating all the non-Muslim citizens of Pakistan on this day, said, “I wish to reiterate our commitment towards a progressive and tolerant society and to work for the protection of their rights as equal citizens of the state.”