October 11, 2008	Saturday	Shawwal 11, 1429

LONDON, Oct 10: An anti-terror petition in Pakistan has attracted almost 63 million signatures in what is believed to be the biggest lobby effort anywhere in the world.

A report in the Guardian on Friday said a third of Pakistanis signed up to denounce acts of terrorism in a campaign titled Yeh Hum Naheen — This is Not Us — over a period of just four weeks.

“That easily shattered the previous record for the largest petition, the 24 million people who signed the Jubilee 2000 campaign against developing world debt. Children over the age of 11 were allowed to take part, given the young age at which extremism is taking hold in society,” observed the paper.

At least 91 terrorist attacks have taken place in Pakistan since July last year, when the country started to descend into a spiral of violence in which more than 1,200 people have died.

Yeh Hum Naheen, financed by British and Indonesian Muslim businesses, launched last year in Pakistan with a hit song featuring some of the country’s biggest stars, including Ali Zafar, who has a fan-base in Britain.

“The power to stop all this happening lies with the people,” said the founder of the campaign, Waseem Mahmood, a British-Pakistani media consultant. “The government and foreign powers really can’t do anything about it. This is about giving people a common platform to fight terrorism.”

He said that all 62.8 million signatories had to verify their identity and most of the names were collected in face-to-face canvassing, though it was possible to take part by text message and online. Campaigners are verifying the milestone with the Guinness World Records. The cream of Pakistani actors have backed the campaign, as well as the media industry, with free airtime and full-page newspaper advertisements donated in a promotional blitz that kicked off this week.