Faisalabad: January 4, 2013. (PCP) The Association of Women for Awareness and Motivation (AWAM), and the Peace and Human Development (PHD Foundation) organized a peace rally entitled ‘Respect for Diversity and Rights of the Others to Live in Peace’ to mark 46th World Day of Peace, in collaboration with Adara Samajhi Behbood (ASB), CARE Foundation, POWER Organization and Aitbar Foundation, held at Faisalabad on December 31, 2012. The speakers of the rally urged the government to take exemplary steps to promote diversity and build culture of tolerance, harmony and dialogue among different communities, and prevent violent conflicts on the grounds of ethnicity, sect and religion, and approve laws against domestic violence and custodian torture to ban such heinous crimes. Speaking on the occasion, a political worker, Najma Afzal said that peace was imperative for the positive image and strong economy of Pakistan. She underscored the need for adoption of a multi-pronged strategy to counter the militancy and extremism across the country. The director of the PHD Foundation, Suneel Malik stressed the need to work together for shunning the differences by allowing and respecting other people’s rights to exercise their beliefs, and join hands for a peaceful society where every segment of society is coexisting, and hatred and intolerance is eliminated. The director of the AWAM, Nazia Sardar said, “Acceptability to the rights of others is the key to promote ideals of peace and harmony in any society, and there is no greater need at the moment but to show tolerance and understand other people’s rights to exercise their beliefs and religious rites in a peaceful and non-violent manner to bring about peaceful coexistence, and promote harmony amongst all segments of the society in our country.” A human rights activist, Naseem Anthony said, “Sectarianism is not in the country’s interest and there is a dire need to promote and restore compassion, respect, tolerance, and tranquility for good of all the sects and communities living in Pakistan.” A women’s rights activist, Shazia George said, “The diversity is a basic fabric of Pakistani society in terms of varied ethnicities, cultures and faiths, therefore, people need to take steps at multiple levels to transform the society’s diversity into strength by owning, respecting, embracing and celebrating the differences among the communities rather than rejecting each other.” The president of the CARE Foundation, Yousaf Adnan said, “The government must fully realize the importance of inter-faith harmony and keenly work to encourage interaction to give peace a chance to flourish to make Pakistan an icon of love through peaceful co-existence, and create an atmosphere where everyone may have religious freedom.” The president of the ASB, Irshad Parkash urged the government as well as religious scholars to come forward to end discrimination towards women, religious minorities and other weaker segments of society in the light of the guiding principles of Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah. The president of the Aitbar Foundation, Nasreen Bukhari said, “All religions teach peace, tolerance and protection of others’ rights, therefore people should have dialogue, understanding, cooperation and harmony to remove misunderstanding among different faiths.” The president of the Insan Welfare Foundation Pakistan, Farrukh Awan said, “Pakistan is embroiled in a chaotic situation, wherein citizens have been experiencing extreme forms of violence, conflicts, terrorism and even war-like situation and all this is only because of this growing sense of extreme intolerance and extremism.” The rally was joined by people from different walks of life including students, lawyers, representatives of trade unions, political parties and NGOs. The participants marching from District Council to Circular Road, were holding peace symbols, banners and placards inscribed with slogans in favour of peace, tolerance, harmony, justice and human rights. They chanted slogans against discrimination, extremism, intolerance and terrorism in the Pakistani society, and demanded end of violence against journalists, human rights defenders, women, labourers, religious, sectarian and ethnic minorities.