ISLAMABAD - Former Interior Minister Senator Rehman Malik yesterday wrote a letter to Secretary General United Nations António Guterres and pleaded him to order the constitution of a high-powered UN Commission on COVID-19 under UN Convention on Biological Weapons, 1975 to discover whether COVID-19 is man-made or a naturally-grown virus.
The letter was made public at a news conference through video link at his residence here. He said that he was not blaming any government or a group or levelling any allegation or endorsing any media report about the origin of COVID-19, however, he has drawn UN General Secretary’s attention to the apprehensions being shown by the international media.
In his letter, Senator A. Rehman Malik wrote that, it is unfortunate that Coronavirus has emerged as the deadliest virus of this century, which definitely, is a deadly pandemic which has stirred up the worst global crisis since World War II adding though the world history is strewn with pandemics, but COVID 19 has shaken the whole world, like no other.
He expressed that Since the breakout of Novel Coronavirus – COVID-19, many claims, speculations, conspiracy theories and misinformation about the disease have found their way into the International print and electronic media, blurring the distinction between real and Fake-News. Instead of calming down the public, it is only creating uncertainty and panic amongst the masses across the globe, he adds.
Senator Malik urged that in face of the unrest precipitated by the breakout of COVID-19, and to pre-empt the growing perception linking the COVID-19 spread to communities and states that is resulting in rapidly increasing polarization in violent responses; world order needs to be preserved in the interest of international community.
He expressed that with the Virologists and Biologist, across board, being unsuccessful in accurately identifying source, location, genesis, and variable results among affected states, the plausibility of some sort of Bio-Warfare within the Fifth Dimension Warfare is gaining root. He added: “This trajectory, unfortunately, has the potential to cause further panic and blame games. I hope the international media plays a positive role and refrain from dividing the world in this difficult hour of mankind. In the given situation it is more important that you may kindly play your role to bring the facts to the public to cease such viral flow of dangerous conspiracy theories.”
In his letter, Senator Rehman Malik plead “as the Bio-Warfare theories gain root in societies across the globe, in my considered view, it is essential that a high-powered Commission be constituted to ascertain the actual facts under the UN Biological Weapons Convention, 1975.”
He suggested that the Commission may comprise of Virologists, Scientists, Professors, Researchers, Analysts and experts in the fields of Microbiology and Virology. “Commission may present its report to you in three-months, and the Terms of Reference (TORs) may include recommendations to prevent future breakouts of such pandemics, and international standards for coordination in case of breakout’, his letter reads. For the proposed UN Commission on COVID-19, Senator Malik proposed following seven highly important TORs to UN Secretary General.