For months, Senators Schumer and Collins have urged the State Department to take action against Saudi Arabia's religious intolerance. They recently cosponsored a Senate resolution calling on the State Department to take such action. Department of State Secretary Colin Powell announced today that Saudi Arabia has been identified as a Country of Particular ConcernThis designation, reserved for "governments that engage in or tolerate gross infringements of religious freedom" could subject Saudi Arabia to further action against it, including economic sanctions.
"The State Department has finally recognized that religious freedom does not exist in Saudi Arabia," Schumer said. "We know that Saudi-funded madrassas promote religious intolerance and violence in schools. We know that Saudi Arabia brutally prohibits the public expression of religion that is not the Wahhabi interpretation of Islam. And we know that Saudi efforts to export militant ideology inflame anti-Western sentiments throughout the world. I hope this signals that our nation is finally putting some muscle into its relationship with the Saudis."
"By designating Saudi Arabia, the United States is able to bring attention to the religious atrocities that take place there on a regular basis," Senator Collins said. "Saudi Arabia has a history of religious persecution that needs to be brought to light. I am pleased by the State Department's action today to name Saudi Arabia as a country of particular concern."
Saudi Arabia has a long and sordid history of denigrating its religious minorities, and the treatment of Muslims is particularly concerning. The approximately one million Shi''a Muslims that claim Saudi citizenship are prohibited from teaching their religion and must worship in secret because government law forbids the practice of any form of Islam aside from the official state religion of Wahhabism/Salafism. Shi''a Muslims also face state-sanctioned discrimination as a result of their beliefs, as the Saudi regime restricts their employment in the petroleum industry, the military, and government agencies.
The Schumer-Collins resolution called on Saudi Arabia to cease its support of religious ideologies that promote hatred, intolerance, violence, and other abuses of internationally recognized human rights, and urges the US to promote religious freedom in Saudi Arabia.
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