Pakistan questions US decision to exclude India from religious freedom blacklist

On Thursday, Pakistan expressed severe disagreement with the US' recent decision to include Pakistan on its blacklist for violating religious freedom while leaving India off of it, claiming that the decision was "separated from ground realities of Pakistan."
According to a statement attributed to Mumtaz Zahra Baloch, a spokesman for the Foreign Office (FO), Pakistan has a "multi-religious and pluralistic country with a great legacy of inter-faith cooperation," according to The News.

A path to prospective sanctions was opened last week when the US put Pakistan, China, Cuba, and Nicaragua, among others, to a list of "Countries of Particular Concern from 2021" regarding international religious freedom.

In response to Pakistan's "unilateral and arbitrary" addition to the US State Department's "blacklist," the FO spokesperson voiced "deep worry and dissatisfaction."

According to The News, she called 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, as The News reported.

The FO spokesperson emphasized that "international concerns over India's treatment of religious minorities have been the subject of several hearings of the US Congress and reports of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Special Procedure Mandate Holders of the UN Human Rights Council, and well-known international NGOs."