WASHINGTON, May 3: A US Congress-mandated commission urged the government to take ‘aggressive action’ against Saudi Arabia for alleged religious freedom violations and warned that religious rights were under threat in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The US Commission on International Religious Freedom also urged Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to keep Saudi Arabia, as well as China, Eritrea, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, Sudan and Vietnam, on the annual government blacklist of ‘severe religious freedom violators’.

In addition, the commission proposed that Pakistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan be included on the blacklist.

Those designated as ‘countries of particular concern’ in the State Department’s annual international religious freedom report could face sanctions.

Afghanistan has been added to the commission’s ‘watch list’ this year, joining Bangladesh, Belarus, Cuba, Egypt, Indonesia and Nigeria.

Michael Cromartie, the commission’s chairman, said religious freedom conditions in Saudi Arabia had not substantially improved since it was blacklisted two years ago.

Freedom of religion ‘does not exist’ in Saudi Arabia, he said.

The US government ‘must not hesitate in taking aggressive action’ against the country, he said, suggesting travel restrictions on Saudi officials as well as export curbs on items that could be used to perpetrate rights violations.

Washington had granted a ‘temporary 180-day waiver of further action’ against Saudi Arabia to allow for continued talks with the ally over religious reforms. The waiver expired in late March.

“As of today, no action with regard to Saudi Arabia has been announced by the US government,” commission member Nina Shea noted at a press conference, where the commission unveiled its annual report containing global assessments of religious freedom. Washington should ‘make any agreement reached with the Saudi Arabian government public in the interest of accountability and transparency’, Ms Shea said.

In Afghanistan and Iraq, where the United States is directly engaged in political reforms, ‘the universal right to religious freedom is imperiled’, Mr Cromartie warned.

In Afghanistan, the courts and scholars last month angrily demanded that a Muslim who converted to Christianity be sentenced to death under Shariat, enraging its Western allies.

President George Bush had to personally intervene in convert Abdul Rahman’s case, and he was spirited out of Afghanistan to asylum in Italy.

Although Rahman’s case was eventually dismissed, ‘concerns about his personal safety meant that he could no longer stay in Afghanistan’, Mr Cromartie noted.

A few months before, an Afghan journalist, who is also a Muslim scholar, was imprisoned and threatened with death after being found guilty of blasphemy.—AFP