ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Friday rejected the United States religious freedom report and said that its segment on Pakistan was a compendium of unsubstantiated and biased assertions, ARY News reported.
In a statement issued today, Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that they did not support such national reports making observations on the internal affairs of sovereign States.
It said, “Pakistan has always played a positive role and engaged the international community including the United States with a view to have better and mutual understanding of the issue of religious freedoms, which are under stress around the world.”
“Pakistan is of the view that all countries are obliged to promote religious harmony and have a duty to protect their citizens in accordance with national laws and international norms,” read the statement.
The ministry said that a glaring discriminatory aspect of the report was that it had ignored the systematic persecution of minorities, particularly Muslims, in India, which were subjected to alien domination and foreign occupation such as in the occupied Jammu and Kashmir.
It also said that Pakistan had often raised its own concerns internationally including with the western governments and the US over the growing trend of Islamophobia in their own countries.