Pakistan rejects US step of placing it on list of countries violating religious freedoms

Pakistan described the move as 'unilateral and arbitrary'.

"#Pakistan rejects the U.S. State Department's unilateral and arbitrary designation under the religious freedom report announced on 20 December 2019," Pakistan Foreign Office Spokesperson tweeted.

The United States has re-designated Pakistan and China, among several nations, as countries of particular concern on religious freedom where persecution continues on the basis of faiths. 

While China is under scanner for its treatment of Uyghur Muslims and their internment in political indoctrination camps, reports of persecution of minorities and groups like Baloch and forced conversions to Islam pour in from Pakistan.

In the far western Chinese region of Xinjiang where Uyghur Muslims live,  supposedly 1 million individuals were sent to camps against their will, media reports said. According to The Guardian, the region itself has been transformed into a surveillance state not seen anywhere else on Earth.

In Pakistan on the other hand the minority Sikhs and Hindus continued to face persecution and reports of young girls being kidnapped and converted to Islam before being married off to Muslim men pour in.

Enforced disappearances of pro-freedom activists in Pakistan's restive Balochistan continued to rile the region seeking separation from the South Asian country the Baloch people consider as brutal enemy.

The US state department in a statement said: "The protection of religious freedom is a top Trump Administration foreign policy priority.  Persecution and discrimination on the basis of religion or belief exists in every region of the world.  The United States continues to work diligently to promote religious freedom and combat abuses.  These recent designations continue that important work."

As per the US Department's statement, Burma, China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan have been redesignated as Countries of Particular Concern under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 for having engaged in or tolerated “systematic, ongoing, [and] egregious violations of religious freedom.”

The Department renewed the placement of Comoros, Russia, and Uzbekistan on a Special Watch List (SWL) for governments that have engaged in or tolerated “severe violations of religious freedom,” and added Cuba, Nicaragua, Nigeria, and Sudan to this list.