ICC Note: The U.S. State Department has once again placed Pakistan on a “Special Watch List” due to severe violation of religious freedom. While the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom recommended Pakistan be designated a “Country of Particular Concern”, the State Department opted to place Pakistan on the “Special Watch List”. Will this attention to religious freedom violations in Pakistan help curb the persecution of Pakistani Christians?

06/04/2018 Pakistan (The Express Tribune) – The US Commission on International Religious Freedom has once again recommended to declare Pakistan as a “country of special concern”, however, the Trump administration has refrained from implementation.

In January, the US State Department placed Pakistan on its special watch list for “severe violations of religious freedom”.

The latest report noted the government and civil society’s efforts in dealing with sectarian conflicts and violence against minorities. According to the report, counter-terrorism actions persecuted by the Civil and military leadership under the National Action Plan included an explicit goal of countering sectarian hate speech and extremism.

The US, however, expressed serious concern over unidentified attackers who continued targeting and killing Shia, Hazaras, and Ahmadis in attacks believed to be religiously motivated, in Pakistan last year.

The report titled, “International Religious Freedom Report for 2017” complied by the United States Department of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, reveals that in 2017, in Pakistan, sectarian violent extremist groups continued to target Shia houses of worship, religious gatherings, religious leaders, and other individuals in attacks resulting in at least 112 persons killed during the year.

The record by some other organizations indicated that 220 members of the Shia community were killed in at least 18 sectarian incidents during the year.

The report paints a bleak portrait of religious freedom in Pakistan while pointing out major incidents of target killings, attacks on their places of worship, forced conversions, discrimination in various fields, societal violence related to allegations of blasphemy, amongst others.

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