Although as many as 665,000 signatures have been appended to an online petition demanding that Pakistan be declared a “State sponsor of terrorism”, the White House apparently plans no response, having “archived” the petition.
“This petition has been archived because it did not meet the signature requirements. It can no longer be signed,” the White House said on its petitions page, without elaborating on the purported lacuna. By the time it was archived, a total of 665,769 signatures had been posted – believed to be a record as far as White House petitions go.
Featured on the White House’s “We the People” page, the petitioners, presumably mostly Indian-Americans, called upon the Obama Administration to come up with the damning designation of Pakistan, deeming it “important to the people of United State of America, India and many other countries which are continuously affected by Pakistan sponsored terrorism”.
The petition, initiated on September 21, came in the wake of a Bill for such a designation, introduced in the House of Representatives by Republican Congressmen Ted Poe and Dana Rohrabacher. The Bill stands referred to the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Under White House rules, an official response will be given by the administration to petitions that secure at least 100,000 signatures within a period of one month. This requirement was met well ahead of the deadline.
In a tit-for-tat move, apparently by Pakistani-Americans, another petition has gone up on the page, demanding that India be declared a terrorist state for allegedly being “involved in spreading terrorism in Pakistan”. This petition, initiated on September 27, has reportedly received 89,176 signatures so far.