US citizens petition to list Pakistan as sponsor of terror

WASHINGTON: A group of Americans are petitioning the White House to designate Pakistan a state-sponsor of terrorism, as proposed in a legislation moved earlier this week by two members of the House of Representatives.

Anyone can create and start a petition to the White House, a move initiated by President Barack Obama to make his administration directly responsive to Americans, and get a response if it gets more than 1,00,000 signatures in 30 days. That response may or may not be the action sought in the petition, but it will be an official response with the demand or issue in question put to relevant authorities.

In this instance, the relevant authority is the US state department. It’s the state department that designates a country a statesponsor of terrorism if it indeed meets the criteria. There are currently three countries on that list — Iran, Syria and Sudan.

Pakistan came quite close in the 1990s. The Pakistan petition was created by “R.G.” on September 21, the day after Congressmen Ted Poe and Dana Rohrabacher introduced H.R. 6069 — the Pakistan State Sponsor of Terrorism Designation Act — in the House of Representatives.

“It is time we stop paying Pakistan for its betrayal and designate it for what it is, a state sponsor of terrorism,” Congressman Poe said after introducing the bill. While introducing the White House petition, its creator said, “This petition is important to the people of United State of America, India and many other countries which are continuously affected by Pakistan sponsored terrorism.”

The petition received 4,837 signatures by Saturday, with 95,163 more needed by October 21 to get a response from the White House. Baloch nationalists — along with the Indian-American community members — staged a protest outside Pakistan’s Consulate in Houston against state-sponsored terrorism.

Holding placards and shouting slogans against Pakistan for human rights violations, protestors condemned the recent “dastardly and cowardly act of Pakistan-sponsored terrorist attack” in Uri.