US Religious Freedom Body Finds Conditions for Pakistan Minorities 'Worsening,' Urges Strong Action

Finding "a worsening religious and political climate of fear, intolerance, and violence" for minorities in Pakistan, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has asked President Donald Trump's administration to take strong measures against the Islamic Republic.

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It urged the US government to impose sanctions on Pakistani officials and agencies responsible for the "serious violations of religious freedoms" in that country, freezing their assets and barring them from entering the USA.

"Religious minority communities — particularly Christians, Hindus, and Shia and Ahmadiyya Muslims — continued to bear the brunt of persecution and prosecutions under Pakistan's strict blasphemy law and to suffer violence from both the police and mobs," the religious freedom body said in its annual report.

"Those responsible for such violence rarely faced legal consequences," it said.