ISLAMABAD – Pakistan has rejected the US State Department’s move to placeit on religious freedom blacklist over “arbitrary and selective assessment”.

A statement issued by the Foreign Office on Wednesday said that StateDepartment’s arbitrary and selective assessment under a US domesticlegislation on religious freedom is rejected.

The response comes after Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, China, Tajikistan,Turkmenistan, Nigeria, Myanmar, Eritrea and North Korea were categorised as“countries of particular concern” under US International Religious FreedomAct..

FO said that the designation of Pakistan as a “country of particularconcern” is completely against the realities on the ground and raisesserious doubts about the credibility of the exercise, the Foreign Officesaid in a statement.

“Such subjective designations do not contribute towards promoting the causeof religious freedom worldwide. Pakistan and the U.S. have beenconstructively engaging on the subject at the bilateral level, a factregrettably overlooked by the U.S,” it added.

Pakistani society is multi-religious and pluralistic with a rich traditionof inter-faith harmony, it highlighted, adding that religious freedom andthe protection of the rights of minorities are guaranteed by country’sConstitution and ensured through a range of legislative, policy andadministrative measures.

The glaring omission of India, where the RSS-BJP regime and their leadersopenly disregard religious freedom and discriminate against minoritycommunities in an institutionalised manner, is unfortunate and puts thecredibility of the U.S. report into question.