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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.
An undated picture taken in 2016 shows a man walking past images of executed Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr on a wall in the Awamiya area in Saudi Arabia's Eastern province.

In a Sunni-majority kingdom where banners of King Salman, his crown prince and deputy crown prince are widely displayed, the homage paid to Nimr is unusual and provocative.

 / AFP / STRINGER        (Photo credit should read STRINGER/AFP/Getty Images)

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.

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