Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he had designated Pakistain among "countries of particular concern" in a congressionally mandated annual report, meaning the US government is obliged to exert pressure to end freedom violations.
Pompeo a year earlier had placed Pakistain on a special watch list ‐ a step short of the designation ‐ in what had been seen as a US tactic to press Islamabad into reforms.
"In far too many places across the globe, individuals continue to face harassment, arrests or even death for simply living their lives in accordance with their beliefs," Pompeo said in a statement.
"The United States will not stand by as spectators in the face of such oppression," he said.
Nine countries remained for another year on the list of Countries of Particular Concern ‐ China, Eritrea
...is run by the People's Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ), with about the amounts of democracy and justice you'd expect from a party with that name. National elections have been periodically scheduled and cancelled; none have ever been held in the country. The president, Isaias Afewerki, has been in office since independence in 1993 and will probably die there of old age...
, Iran, Myanmar,
North Korea, Soddy Arabia...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face...
, Sudan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. They are accused of having engaged in or tolerated "systematic, ongoing, [and] egregious violations of religious freedom".
The US removed one country from the list ‐ Uzbekistan ‐ but kept it on the watch list.
Pompeo also put on the watch list Russia, adding another item of contention to the relationship between the two powers.
Russia has increasingly drawn concern in the US over its treatment of Jehovah's Witnesses, the heterodox Christian group known for proselytization.
Also on the watch list was the Comoros, the Indian Ocean archipelago that is almost exclusively Sunni Moslem.