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Religion | A year of private negotiations later, U.S. officials say why they chose public confrontation with longtime ally, the Saudis | Priya Abraham

Religious-freedom experts working with the U.S. government have long known Saudi Arabia was one of the world's worst persecutors of Christians. Driving home that the country also persecutes its own Muslim population is what finally pushed U.S. officials to do something about it.

In the year before the State Department last month added Saudi Arabia to its official list of persecuting countries, staff members from the department's religious-freedom office visited the kingdom five times—more than any other country they examined in the world. Relations with the United States' largest oil supplier are historically white-gloved, and many in the diplomatic corps long hoped for private improvement on church-faith matters without a public confrontation.