Democratic battles: Debating democracy in Pakistan

225 attend seminar on how best to promote democracy.

FAISALABAD: A seminar on the theme, Democratic Culture in Pakistan: practices and prospects, was organised by the Association of Women for Awareness and Motivation (AWAM) in collaboration with Peace and Human Development (PHD) Foundation, Centre for Human Rights Education (CHRE) and Development Organisation for Social Transformation (DOST) held at Barkat Pura on Monday.

Speakers at the seminar said that the government should take concrete steps to fully promote building a culture of democracy in Pakistan by enforcing democratic norms at the family, organisation, department and political party level. A total of 225 men and women from different communities participated in the seminar, including AWAM executive secretary Naseem Anthony, Nazia Sardar, ASDP director Amina Zaman, Iftikhar Ahmad, Workers Party member Arif Ayaz, M Irfan of NSF, Samina Waheed and Amna Ehsan. The motive behind organising the seminar was to raise awareness regarding the importance of the right to vote and to motivate the participants to play their role in building a culture of democracy in Pakistan.

Anthony said, “The ultimate goal of democracy is to uplift the living standard of people through sovereign and responsible government. The prime obligations of a democratic government include providing equal opportunities and nurturing human rights irrespective of any discrimination. We need to frame people-friendly policies and laws because the respect and defence of human rights is imperative if we are to build a peaceful and democratic society.”

Sardar said discrimination and prejudice exists among people of Pakistan on the basis of faith, sex, ethnicity, language and caste, which makes the promotion and implementation of democratic values and principles in families, institutes and political parties extremely important.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 20^th,  2011.