Lahore: Speakers at seminar on “Mr Jinnah’s vision of Pakistan” called upon the national leadership and parliament to make Quaid-i-Azam’s vision of Pakistan as preamble of the constitution which he presented in his inaugural address to the Constituent Assembly on Aug 11, 1947.
Speaking at the seminar organised by South Asian Free Media Association (Safma) on Thursday, PTI’s Lahore organiser and MNA Shafqat Mehmood said Mr Jinnah was a democrat par excellence, who was committed to equal rights for all sections of society regardless of their creed, ethnicity, gender and colour.
He stressed that the state should invest maximum resources on education and offer uniform curricula to develop a nation that could have tolerance as part of their training.
HRCP secretary-general I.A Rehman said Pakistan could only progress by following democratic norms, peace, pluralism, moderation and tolerance.
He said Quaid’s address to the Constituent Assembly had called for equal rights for all Muslims and minorities. He also called for changing the mindset of people to develop tolerance for every human being.
Columnist Ataul Haq Qasmi said the tolerance level was depleting and regretted that same was the case among writers’ community.
Later, Safma secretary-general Imtiaz Alam presented a resolution which was unanimously adopted by the house.
The resolution said Quaid-i-Azam’s vision of Pakistan was enlightened, moderate, democratic, federalist, pluralist, tolerant and inclusive of all religious, ethnicities and the people of all shades and classes, poor, women and minorities in particular. The resolution said the National Action Plan against terrorism was going on well on military front and it needed to be extended to education, culture, politics and media.
It also demanded that fundamental human rights, women rights, freedom of expression, right to know, due process of law and justice must be respected.
It said the National Security Advisers’ meeting must ensure ceasefire and resumption of composite dialogue process with India. The Pak-Afghan amity must be ensured to restore peace in Afghanistan, the resolution concluded.
Justice (retired) Nasira Iqbal, journalist Rashed Rahman also spoke.
