US should condemn Saudi Arabia religious abuses

The World Evangelical Alliance has said the US government must do more to hold Saudi Arabia to account on religious liberty.

Saudi Arabia has been on the US State Department's Country of Particular Concern (CPC) list since 2004. Countries on the list can be subject to economic sanctions but the WEA states in a new report that these have been waived in the case of Saudi Arabia since 2006.

The WEA suggests the US is having little impact in improving religious rights in the Wahhabi Sunni kingdom and points to the recent sentencing of cyber activist Raef Badawi to seven years in prison and 600 lashes for offending Islam and violating the kingdom's cyber crime law.  Read more