From CNS News, with thanks to EPG.
A U.S.-based think tank critical of the Saudi government has added its voice to allegations that authorities in the kingdom routinely destroy Bibles.
“As a matter of official policy, the government either incinerates or dumps Bibles, crosses and other Christian paraphernalia,” the Saudi Institute said in an article posted on its website.
“Although considered as holy in Islam and mentioned in the Koran dozens of times, the Bible is banned in Saudi Arabia, and is confiscated and destroyed by government officials,” it said.
Last week a Christian pastor who worked in Saudi Arabia during the 1990s told Cybercast News Service it was widely known among underground Christians there that Bibles were confiscated — and sometimes shredded — by Saudi customs officials at ports of entry.
The Saudi Embassy in Washington has yet to respond to emailed queries about its policies regarding the Bibles and the shredding allegations.
Saudi Arabia was one of the first governments to protest after Newsweek reported earlier this month that U.S. troops had thrown a Koran into a toilet to fluster Muslim terror suspects being detained by the U.S. military at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
A statement issued on May 12 said the Saudi government was “following with great concern and apprehension reports that the sanctity of the Holy Koran has been violated on several occasions at Guantanamo Bay.”..