Pakistan gets US presidential waiver to avoid sanctions over religious freedom violations

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks to the press at the State Department in Washington, DC on November 24, 2020. (AFP)

• On Monday, Secretary Pompeo designated Pakistan among countries of concern “for engaging systematic, ongoing, egregious religious freedom violations”
• Pakistan has called the designation “selective and arbitrary” and said India’s absence from the list puts the credibility of the US classification in question

ISLAMABAD: US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo has issued a presidential waiver for Pakistan, exempting it from economic sanctions over being a violator of religious freedoms, local media reported on Thursday. 
On Monday, Secretary Pompeo had designated Pakistan among countries of concern “under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 for engaging systematic, ongoing, egregious religious freedom violations.”
The designations automatically lead to economic sanctions against the alleged violator.
Pakistan has called the designation “selective and arbitrary” and said arch-rival India’s absence from the list puts into question the credibility of the US classification.
On Tuesday, Pakistan’s Dawn paper reported US Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom Samuel D. Brownback as telling a news briefing that a number of the recently designated countries had been exempted from sanctions.
“For Pakistan ... 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,” Brownback said. 
In reply to another question, Brownback said the designations had 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 on its religious freedoms record, Brownback 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.”