ISLAMABAD: On the 64th birthday of Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto, former president Asif Ali Zardari paid glowing tribute to her vision of steadfastness and relentless fight for the cause of women and the downtrodden. In a message, Zardari said that Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto was upholding the banner of democracy while leading from the front the fight against militants created and nurtured by successive dictators and their henchmen in the country. “On this birthday of the Muslim world’s first directly-elected woman prime minister, it is worrying that the anti-women brigade created by the dictators continue to suppress women, even calling for violence against them, in the name of religion,” he said. “We condemn and reject the hysterical anti-women noises being made by these elements,” he said. Zardari also asked people to follow Shaheed Benazir in standing up to militants and extremists and not to allow them to enforce their ideology through force. He said that in her last words uttered by Shaheed Benazir Bhutto at a public meeting in Rawalpindi, she had asked people to stand up to extremism, dictatorship and to banish poverty and ignorance. Zardari said that the party would continue fighting militancy and strengthen democracy. Zadari also paid tribute to those who laid down their lives or suffered in the course of democratic struggle and in fighting regressive elements. “On the eve of Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto’s birthday, we all salute them,” he said. Published in Daily Times, June 21st, 2017.