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Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A29186-2003Dec24.html
No Celebration in Riyadh
(Washington Post) - In Saudi Arabia, "freedom of religion does not exist." That is the conclusion, once again, of the State Department's annual report on international religious freedom. Yet despite its detailed catalogue of Saudi abuses of religious liberty, the government still does not include the kingdom on its list of countries "of particular concern for religious liberty." Year after year, Saudi Arabia gets a pass. If the list is not to be a joke, Saudi Arabia ought to be on it until the day its many Christian residents can publicly celebrate Christmas without risking - as the report puts it - "arrest, imprisonment, lashing, deportation, and sometimes torture for engaging in religious activity that attracts official attention."