WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo has issued a presidential waiver for Pakistan, exempting it from the sanctions that follow a country’s designation as a violator of religious freedom.

On Monday, Secretary Pompeo had designated Pakistan and nine others as Countries of Particular Concern (CPC) for alleged continued violations of religious freedom during 2019-20.

Pakistan rejected the designation as an “arbitrary and selective assessment”, which was “completely against the realities on the ground and raises serious doubts about the credibility of the exercise”.

The designations, slapped under the US International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, automatically leads to strict economic sanctions against the alleged violator.

Islamabad says India’s omission as a violator of religious freedom puts credibility of US report into question

But America’s Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom Samuel D. Brownback told a news briefing on Tuesday afternoon that some of the designated countries have been exempted from these sanctions.

“For Pakistan, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan, the Secretary issued a waiver for the presidential action requirement, determining that there were important national interests of the United States requiring the exercise of the waiver authority,” he said.

The US Commission on International Religious Freedom, which recommends the designations, had suggested also placing India on the violators’ list. But the list issued on Monday did not include India.

Pakistan pointed out that “the glaring omission of India, where the RSS-BJP regime and their leaders openly disregard religious freedom and discriminate against minorities communities in an institutional manner, is unfortunate and puts the credibility of the US report into question”.

This issue was also raised at the Tuesday afternoon briefing in Washington when a journalist reminded Ambassador Brownback that the Modi government had enacted discriminatory laws and openly targeted religious minorities and yet India was not designated.

“There were several recommendations made by the commission that the Secretary did not follow, and this was one of them,” Ambassador Brownback replied. “We watch the situation in India very closely. The Secretary traveled there, multiple times … and is well aware of a lot of the communal violence that’s happening in India.”

Secretary Pompeo, he said, was also aware of the statute enacted by and the issues associated with the Modi government.

“He’s raised it at the highest levels, but just decided at this point in time not to place them on a CPC or a Special Watch List,” he added.

In reply to another question, Ambassador Brownback said the designations followed an extensive review of the situation in both India and Pakistan.

“We’ve reviewed extensively the situation in Pakistan and India, and I’ve visited both countries in this role. I’ve visited both countries … and we note the problems that are taking place in our annual report in both Pakistan and India.”

Explaining why the US treated India differently, he said: “Pakistan — a lot of their actions are done by the government. In India, some of them are done by the government and the law that was passed, and much of it is communal violence. And then when that takes place, we try to determine whether there has been effective police enforcement, judicial action after communal violence takes place.”

He claimed that “half of the world’s people that are locked up for apostasy or blasphemy” were in Pakistani jails, which, he explained also was taken into consideration while designating Pakistan.

Ambassador Brownback said that Pakistan was also one of the source countries for forced brides, mostly from religious minorities, being sent to China.

“Christians and Hindu women (are) being marketed as concubines or forced brides into China because there’s not effective support, and then there’s discrimination against the religious minorities that make them more vulnerable,” he claimed.

The US envoy for religious freedom said that not designating India as a country of particular concern did not mean that they did not have these problems.

“The violence (in India) is a problem. We will continue to raise those issues, but those are some of the basis as to why Pakistan continues to be on the CPC list and India is not.”

Published in Dawn, December 10th, 2020