Trump pressed to punish Saudi Arabia over religious intolerance
A federal commission on religious freedom wants the president to end a decadelong pass for Riyadh.
A federal panel led in part by conservative Christians close to the Donald Trump administration is pressing the president to penalize Saudi Arabia for its religious discrimination following the mass execution of 37 prisoners, most of them members of the kingdom’s minority Shiite population.
The bipartisan US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) today rolled out its annual report, which makes recommendations to the State Department ahead of its own report on the issue, to be released later in the year. Today’s report calls on Trump to lift a waiver that has allowed Saudi Arabia to escape penalties from its designation as a “country of particular concern” for more than a decade.
“We’re encouraging this administration to be more forceful in following these recommendations,” Tony Perkins, a USCIRF commissioner and president of the conservative Family Research Council, told Al-Monitor. “There were some positive developments … but these recent events that have occurred really dashed those hopes.”
USCIRF also called on the State Department to lift the waiver in last year’s report.
