Washington ? The United States bowed to domestic pressure Wednesday and named Saudi Arabia as one of the world’s worst violators of religious freedom.

The Middle Eastern kingdom was listed for the first time as “a country of particular concern” in the State Department’s annual Report on International Religious Freedom. By law, that listing requires the administration to consider possible action against Riyadh, including sanctions.

“Freedom of religion does not exist,” the report stated in its assessment of Saudi Arabia. “It is not recognized or protected under the country’s laws and basic religious freedoms are denied to all but those who adhere to the state-sanctioned version of Sunni Islam.”

The Saudi government officially allows only the strict Wahhabi school of Islam, restricting the practice of other Muslim sects as well as other religions, including Christianity.

At a news conference Wednesday, John Hanford, American ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom, focused on the persecution of other Muslims.

“Non-Wahhabi Sunni Muslims as well as Shias and Sufi Muslims face discrimination and sometimes severe restrictions on the practice of their faith,” Hanford said. “A number of leaders from these traditions have been arrested and imprisoned.”

Saudi Arabia joined Vietnam and Eritrea as newcomers to a list that already includes Burma, China, Cuba, Iran and North Korea. Wednesday’s actions, which reportedly came after months of agonizing within the State Department, marks the first time a close ally of the United States has been included in the category.

There was no immediate reaction from Riyadh to the development, and an official at the Saudi Arabian Information Office, an arm of the Saudi Embassy in Washington, declined to comment.

But the step was welcomed by human rights groups, some members of Congress and conservative Christian religious organizations, who have repeatedly argued that the Saudis had long violated the accepted norms of religious freedom but had escaped being cited because of the country’s role as the world’s biggest oil exporter and an important U.S. ally in the Middle East.

They contended that the repeated failure to cite Saudi Arabia in the past was so glaring that it weakened the report’s credibility. The report Wednesday was the U.S. government’s sixth such compilation.