Islamabad; Pakistan on Thursday strongly objected to the US’ recent decision to put the nation to its religious freedom blacklist and leave India off of it, claiming that the move is ‘separated from ground realities of Pakistan’. According to a statement made by Mumtaz Zahra Baloch, a spokesman for the Foreign Office (FO), Pakistan has a ‘strong legacy of inter-faith peace’ and is a ‘multi-religious and pluralistic nation,’ according to The News.
Last week, the US made a number of countries—Countries of Particular Concern from 2021—on international religious freedom part of a blacklist, opening the door to possible penalties. These countries included Pakistan, China, Cuba, Nicaragua, and others. The US State Department’s ‘unilateral’and arbitrary’ addition of Pakistan to the ‘blacklist’ caused ‘great worry and sadness,’ according to the FO spokeswoman.
According to The News, she named India the ‘worst offender of religious freedom’ and questioned why it wasn’t included on the blacklist despite the USCIRF’s ‘clear suggestion’. According to her, the ‘conspicuous omission’ casts great doubt on the transparency and reliability of the entire procedure and transforms it into a subjective exercise in discrimination.
‘International concerns over India’s treatment of religious minorities have been the subject of several hearings of the US Congress and reports from the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Special Procedure Mandate Holders of the UN Human Rights Council, and well-known international NGOs,’ the FO spokesperson highlighted. She said that we had expressed our worries to the US authorities about this designation.
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