Daily Times

KARACHI: Senate Chairman Raza Rabbani Sunday said that he will oppose the legislation already cleared by the National Assembly for revival of military courts, in the Upper House.

“I had voted for military courts before notwithstanding the way that I didn’t need,” he told the audience at a book launching ceremony at the Arts Council Auditorium. Speaking on the issues the country is currently faced with, the Senate chairman said the original objective of the creation of Pakistan had been destroyed by design. “The August 11 speech of Quaid-e-Azam was kept hidden for a long time. Gen Zia-ul-Haq while amending the constitution through the 8th Amendment removed the word ‘freely’, which we later restored through the 18th Amendment. Textbooks have been designed in a way that democracy is maligned. The state policies are promoting sectarianism; minorities have been suppressed and the history distorted intentionally,” he said. Senator Rabbani said the state is not in favour of any counter-narrative. “State, instead, wants continuation of the same old policy and narrative” he said.

Supreme Court Bar Association President Rasheed A Rizvi said Jamaat-e-Islami and JUI in India have been demanding secularism since 1947, but they always opposed secularism in Pakistan. Balochistan’s former Chief Minister Dr Abdul Malik said religious extremism is being injected in his province. “In my area, which is considered to be secular, a large number of Jihadi seminaries are flourishing,” he said. Malik said political workers are being marginalised and that if this trend continued, only rich people would be able to reach assemblies in the future. “Many institutions are still reluctant to accept supremacy of parliament,” he said.