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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: September 16, 2004
SCHUMER, COLLINS APPLAUD STATE DEPT FOR ADDING SAUDI ARABIA
TO LIST OF RELIGIOUSLY INTOLERANT NATIONS
Senators Recently Sponsored Resolution Calling on State Dept
to Add Saudi Arabia to List
Washington, DC – U.S. Senators Charles Schumer (D-NY) and
Susan Collins (R-ME) today applauded the U.S. State Department’s
decision to add Saudi Arabia to the U.S. list of religiously intolerant
nations.
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 Concern. This 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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