Edited sentence: A designation as a CPC requires the State Department to take whatever steps are necessary — up to the level of sanctions — to increase religious tolerance in the designated country.Also joining the list of CPCs for the first time in 2004 were Eritrea and Vietnam; countries redesignated as CPCs include the People's Republic of China, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, and Sudan.For example, the United States Department of State maintains a list of "countries of particular concern" (CPCs) that engage in "particularly severe violations" of freedom of religion.One Saudi, Abdulaziz al-Fayez, a member of the country's Shura Council, states that "all Saudis are Muslims and this is a Muslim state.The following day, September 16, prominent Saudis rejected the declaration as politically motivated.The list released September 15, 2004, included, for the first time Saudi Arabia: the report stated that freedom of religion does not exist in that officially Islamic kingdom.There are several current annually-revised assessments of freedom of religion in the world's nations