President Zardari, who is also the co-Chairman of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), in a message on the 58th birthday of Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto asked the party workers to reiterate their commitment to the values she stood and fought for, and finally laid down her life.
"Let us on this day take a leaf from her life and stand up to militants and extremists and vow not to allow them force their ideology through brute force," he said.
President Zardari said; "to commemorate her sacrifice in the fight against militants I urge all party workers to donate blood on this day, as before, for all those who have shed their blood fighting militants."
The President recalled that days before her assassination the Shaheed leader asked the people to stand up to extremism, dictatorship and to banish poverty and ignorance.
"Her clarion call was a road-map for making Pakistan a modern and pluralistic state," the President said and pledged that the nation would follow the road-map given by her.
He said the PPP will continue strengthening democracy and extricating the downtrodden people from poverty and degradation as envisioned by her. With the support of the workers the party will continue its forward march and grow from strength to strength, he said.
The Party Co-Chairman also paid tributes to those who sacrificed their lives or suffered in the course of democratic struggle and in fighting the militants.
"Let us also remember our martyrs who have laid down their lives so that the nation lives and also the martyrs of democracy who suffered exile, imprisonment and execution to end tyranny and dictatorship."
"On the eve of Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto's birthday we salute them all," the President said.
Copyright APP (Associated Press of Pakistan), 2011
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