Peoples who always look forward to the future and struggle against tyranny and dictatorship have no choice but to adopt democracy, said the Nobel Peace Prize laureate and human rights activist Tawakkol Karman today. 

As a keynote speaker at a festival held today in Pakistan by the Information Technology University (ITU) Punjab under the title “The Afkar-e-Taza ThinkFest”, Tawakkol Karman stated: “Only democracy is the right choice for peoples.”

“Every dictator is a terrorist and vice versa, and rulers will go while peoples will remain," she added. 

She called on citizens to unite their efforts in the fight against corruption, dictatorship and tyranny, explaining that "tyranny and terrorism are two sides of the same coin."

According to ITU, the Afkar-e-Taza ThinkFest is the first of its kind festival in Pakistan which focuses solely on fostering creative and innovative thinking and aims to promote the forward-looking, progressive and modern vision of Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah. 

The second edition of the festival at Alhamra Arts Centre, The Mall, on January 13-14, has brought together distinguished academics, writers, poets, artists, analysts, and performers from all over the world. 

The title of this event “The Afkar-e-Taza ThinkFest” is taken from the Poet Laureate Sir Muhammad Iqbal’s poem Takhliq (Creation). 

Dr. Umar Saif founding Vice Chancellor of ITU was quoted as saying that a number of 112 high profile speakers among them 25 from around the globe and representatives of 35 universities from all four different provinces and delegations from six universities will deliberate on promoting the new thinking to deal with the existing radicalization in our universities.