ISLAMABAD – Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry on Thursday said that the government needs to ensure its writ and rule of law in order to end extremism in the country.
The minister was addressing the launching ceremony of the Charter of Peace campaign organized by Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies (PIPS) here.
He said that the state must ensure its monopoly on the use of force and no private groups should be allowed to do that. He also urged the need to promote the culture of diversity to stop violence in society.
Representatives of civil society, media, law enforcement agencies and former military officials attended the event.
“We are facing a danger from within [due to extremism]… this threat is bigger than the ones we face from outside,” the information minister said, adding that Pakistan was facing no potential threat from India because of having nuclear power and the sixth largest army in the world.
He said the state had to take a step back while dealing with the violent protests of Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), as the former was not sufficiently ready to take on the menace of extremism. He further said that religious seminaries were not the breeding grounds of extremism rather the country’s schools and colleges were the cause of creating this problem due to the recruitments of teachers having a certain mindset during the 1980s.
“We have to fight against extremism through short and long-term measures,” Chaudhry said.
He said that the issue in Pakistan was that no one was ready to hear an alternative point of view. “As long as there will be no space for another’s point of view, how can we find a solution to end extremism through soft approaches?” he asked.
The federal minister said that the situation was such that known religious scholars were reluctant to speak openly against extremism for fear of violence. Chaudhry concluded by saying that the state would have to ensure protection of the lives of citizens if it wanted that there should be alternative points of view on certain matters to reduce violence in society.
Speaking at the event earlier, Advisor to Prime Minister on Accountability and Interior Barrister Shahzad Akbar said the problem of Afghanistan needed to be seen holistically, as it was not a matter of defeat of one party and victory of another. He said it was imperative to address the root cause of extremism.
The prime minister’s advisor further said the government should open negotiations with only those militant groups who accept the Constitution and the law but this “process should be inclusive.”
In his remarks, Chairman Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) Dr. Qibla Ayaz said that a lack of democratic behaviours in society was a hurdle in tackling extremism.