Divorced from ground reality: Pakistan rejects US State Deptt’s country report on HR practices

Celina Ali

Islamabad: Pakistan on Thursday categorically rejected the recently released 2023 Country Report on human rights practices issued by the US State Department terming its contents “unfair, based on inaccurate information and completely divorced from the ground reality.” The Foreign Office spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Bloch, in a statement, said that the US State Department’s annual exercises of preparing such unsolicited reports lacked objectivity and remained inherently flawed in their methodology.

“These reports use a domestic social lens to judge human rights in other countries in a politically biased manner.

This year’s report is once again conspicuous by its lack of objectivity and politicization of the international human rights agenda,” she said. She said the report clearly demonstrated the double standards thus undermining the international human rights discourse.

The spokesperson said that it was deeply concerning that a report purported to highlight human rights situations around the world ignored or downplayed the most urgent hotspots of gross human rights violations such as in Gaza and Indian Occupied Jammu & Kashmir. “Only a politically motivated report can ignore the alarming situation in Gaza, the weaponization of humanitarian assistance and the massacre of over 33,000 civilians. Silence of the United States on the continuing genocide in Gaza runs counter to the stated objectives behind the so-called country reports on human rights,” she remarked. The spokesperson reiterated that Pakistan remained steadfast in its commitment to strengthen its own human rights framework, constructively engage to promote international human rights agenda and uphold fairness and objectivity in the international human rights discourse.

“If the US must engage in this exercise, then we expect the US State Department to at least exercise due diligence when conducting the assessment of complex issues, demonstrate objectivity, impartiality, and responsibility in finalizing such reports.” She said the US should demonstrate the requisite moral courage to speak the truth about all situations and play a constructive role in supporting international efforts to bring an end to atrocities in the most urgent hotpots of gross human rights violations.