HYDERABAD, Dec 10: The intellectuals of Sindh, representatives of NGOs and politicians have expressed grave concern over the human rights violations in Pakistan and said that without the restoration of judicious political and democratic system, human rights situation can not improve in the country.

They were addressing a seminar sponsored by the Democratic Commission for Human Development Sindh on the topic of “Prevailing Situation and Human Rights” at the Wapda Labour Hall here on Monday evening.

Noted intellectual Professor Jamal Naqvi said that national rights were an integral part of democratic rights and added that if the democratic movement failed in Pakistan, national rights cannot be achieved.

Under the circumstances, he urged the nationalist parties and PONAM to link their national struggle with democratic struggle.

Professor Naqvi was of the opinion that controlled democracy could not function at the end of the cold war.

He said that the democratic forces should not create hurdles in the way of democratic process and they must respect the sanctity of parliament. He said it was equally important that the political parties should sink their differences and continue democratic struggle because the right of vote was the basic right of the people.

Totally rejecting fundamentalism, Professor Naqvi said that 90 percent of the people supported the democratic forces.

He, however, said that due to the non-democratic rulers, the democratic forces were suppressed and ten percent fundamentalists were brought to the fore.

He stressed the need for giving basic rights to the nation within the framework of federal system and added that the irony was that even the rights guaranteed under the constitution had been denied to the nations.

Referring to the devolution of power at grassroots level, Prof Naqvi said that the councils and the federation had been empowered while the provinces had been shorn of power. He emphasised the need for the empowerment of provinces.

For the sake of argument, he said that the people’s view had great importance about the demand of confederation or Sindhu Desh.

He recalled that Shaikh Mujeeb-ur-Rehman had also gone to the people with his six-point demand. He termed the resolve of General Pervez to continue as the President after the general elections as undemocratic.

He said for strengthening the future political system of the country, it was necessary that all the democratic institutions and parliament should be completely independent.

Speaking on the occasion, the chief of Sindh Democratic Party (SDP), Mr. Yousuf Leghari advocate said that basic human rights could be divided into two parts-one bestowed by the state on the people and second natural rights. He said in Pakistan, both type of rights were being violated.

He said during the America-Afghan war, a delegation of Jamat-e-Islami had called on him and asked him to perform his due role in respect of human rights violations in Afghanistan. He said he had replied that America had violated human rights in Afghanistan but here the Mullahs had snatched our natural rights so much so that “we had even been deprived of calling ourselves as Sindhis”. He said there should be no compromise on national and natural rights.

PPP leader Jam Saqi said that innocent people had been killed by police in fake encounters in Sukkur and Tando Adam and added that in Sindh the people had even been deprived of their natural right to life. He said destruction would be our destiny if politics and religion were not separated.

The others who spoke on the occasion, included Jami Chandio, Professor Khalid Wahab, Saleem Lashari, Ilyas Khokhar, Aftab Ahmed, Moulana Azizullah Bohyo and others.