Staff Reporter
Islamabad
Chairman Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, has said that strengthening the roots of democracy in the world, was the responsibility of individual nations and the collective responsibility of the democratic world.
In his message on the eve of the International Day of Democracy being observed by the United Nations and its member states on Tuesday, the PPP Chairman emphatically endorsed the UN statement that, “The values of freedom, respect for human rights and the principle of holding periodic and genuine elections by universal suffrage are essential elements of democracy.”
Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said that the fight between democratic and dictatorial forces which began in Pakistan after the death of Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, is still raging despite the sacrifices of democratic leaders Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto and others who laid down their lives for democracy and human rights.
He said the democratic workers of Pakistan suffered capital punishments, solitary confinements, tortures, public lashing, long imprisonments and fabricated cases at the hands of tin-pot dictators and their puppets, but never compromised on democratic and human rights of the people.
The Pakistanis struggle for democracy and the huge sacrifices made to achieve it, stands out in the contemporary struggles for democratic systems, he added. Bilawal pointed out that PPP gave to the people of Pakistan their first-ever unanimous Constitution, the first-ever directly elected Prime Minister Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and the first-ever woman elected Prime Minister of Islamic world Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto, besides the first-ever democratic government in Pakistan to complete its tenure under President Asif Ali Zardari.
