Saudi remains on religious freedom blacklist

The United States says religious freedom in Saudi Arabia  remains ‘severely restricted' in its annual report on religious freedom around the world.

The Report on International Religious Freedom, sent to Congress on Friday, was produced prior to the yearly announcement of a blacklist of countries ‘of particular concern’ news agency AFP reported.

The report covers religious freedoms in around 200 countries, and forms the basis for the blacklist of countries subject to US sanctions for religious repression.

Overall government policies in Saudi Arabia “continue to place severe restrictions on religious freedom” the report said, however, “there were some improvements in specific areas during the period covered by this report”.

Washington defines freedom of religion as the ability to practise any religion publicly.

State Department official John Hanford said "In the case of Saudi Arabia, I think it's important first for there to be the freedom to securely meet, as has happened for many years, in homes, and for the raids and the other problems, the deportations, the arrests, to cease."

"I'm not sure that the security situation right now - even if there were people who favoured allowing minority faiths to build places of worship, I'm not sure that would be a good idea at this point, frankly," Hanford added.

"Non-Muslims and Muslims who do not adhere to the government's interpretation of Islam continued to face significant political, economic, legal, social, and religious discrimination," the report says.

"Charges of harassment, abuse, and even killings at the hands of the muttawa (religious police) continued to surface. Saudi textbooks continued to contain statements of intolerance," it added.

Hanford said Saudi Arabia should remain on the US blacklist but that he was encouraged by some acts of tolerance, which "are in the early stages of implementation."

Iraq, Egypt and China were also criticized in the report.

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