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   From: catholicforsureNOSPAM@yahoo.com   
      
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   On Tue, 24 May 2005 00:16:58 +0000, Stormin Mormon wrote:   
      
   > "Omega" <2121@insightbb.com> wrote in message   
   > news:29pke.195$Is4.161@attbi_s21...   
   >   
   > http://www.cnsnews.com//ViewForeignBureaus.asp?Page=\ForeignBu   
   eaus\archive\200505\FOR20050519a.html   
   >   
   > This is in the category of "consider the source."   
   >   
   > This message is meant to influence as well as inform.   
   >   
   > ***   
   >   
   >   
   > Saudis Shred Bibles, Rights Campaigners Claim   
   > By Patrick Goodenough   
   > CNSNews.com International Editor   
   > May 19, 2005   
   >   
   > (CNSNews.com) - Bibles found in the possession of visitors to Saudi Arabia   
   > are routinely confiscated by customs officials, and in some cases copies   
   > allegedly have been put through a paper shredder, according to religious   
   > rights campaigners.   
   >   
   > Reports from the Islamic world of the abuse of Bibles and other items   
   > important to Christians emerge from time to time, but generally have little   
   > impact - in contrast to the wave of Muslim anger sparked by a Newsweek   
   > report, since retracted, of Koran desecration by the U.S. military.   
   >   
   > "The Muslims respect the Koran far more than Christians respect the Bible,"   
   > says Danny Nalliah, a Sri Lankan-born evangelical pastor now based in   
   > Australia.   
   >   
   > During the 1990s, Nalliah spent two years in Saudi Arabia, where he was   
   > deeply involved with the underground church.   
   >   
   > "It's a very well-known fact that if you have a Bible at customs when you   
   > enter the airport, and if they find the Bible, that the Bible is taken and   
   > put in the shredder," he said in an interview this week.   
   >   
   > "If you have more than one Bible you will be taken into custody, and if you   
   > have a quantity of Bibles you will be given 70 lashes for sure - you could   
   > even be executed."   
   >   
   > Nalliah had not himself seen a Bible being shredded but said the practice   
   > was widely acknowledged among Christians in the kingdom.   
   >   
   > Abuse of Christians and their symbols was not restricted to the destruction   
   > of Bibles, he added.   
   >   
   > A friend of his, a fellow Christian in Saudi Arabia, told him of witnessing   
   > a particularly unpleasant incident involving a Catholic nun.   
   >   
   > The man had been in the transit lounge at the airport in Jeddah - the   
   > gateway to Mecca, used by millions of Hajj pilgrims each year - when a nun   
   > arrived at the customs desk.   
   >   
   > "Some fool [travel agent] had put her on a transit flight in Jeddah. You   
   > don't do that to a Catholic nun, because she's going to be tormented."   
   >   
   > "They opened her bag, went through her prayer book, put the prayer book   
   > through the shredder ... took the crucifix off her neck and smashed it,   
   > tormented her for many minutes."   
   >   
   > Eventually another Muslim official objected to their conduct, came across   
   > and "rescued" her, pointing out to the customs officials that she was not   
   > entering the country but only in transit and would be leaving on the next   
   > plane.   
   >   
   > Briefed beforehand about the risks, Nalliah said he did not carry a Bible   
   > when he arrived in the kingdom in 1995.   
   >   
   > Subsequently, however, he took possession of hundreds of Bibles that had   
   > been smuggled into Saudi Arabia to be used by believers there.   
   >   
   > Nalliah said he had a close call one morning when armed members of the   
   > notorious Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of   
   > Vice - the religious police, or muttawa - hammered at his front door at 1   
   > a.m.   
   >   
   > With 400 smuggled Bibles "sitting on the dining room table," he believed his   
   > life to be in serious danger. "That was a crime equal to rape, murder, armed   
   > robbery, and in Saudi Arabia you get the same punishment," he said - the   
   > death penalty.   
   >   
   > Nalliah said he had prayed earnestly and, in what he could only describe as   
   > a miracle, the men left without entering his home.   
   >   
   > 'Contraband'   
   >   
   > Claims of Bible desecration in Saudi Arabia have been made by others.   
   >   
   > "One Christian recently reported that his personal Bible was put into a   
   > shredder once he entered customs," the late Nagi Kheir, spokesman for the   
   > American Coptic Association and a veteran campaigner for religious freedom   
   > in the Middle East, wrote in an article several years ago.   
   >   
   > "Some Christians have reported that upon entering Saudi Arabia they have had   
   > their personal Bibles taken from them and placed into a paper shredder," the   
   > U.S.-based organization International Christian Concern said in a 2001   
   > report.   
   >   
   > In its most recent report on religious freedom around the world, the State   
   > Department made no reference to Bible destruction, but said they were   
   > considered contraband.   
   >   
   > "Customs officials routinely open mail and shipments to search for   
   > contraband, including ... non-Muslim materials, such as Bibles and religious   
   > videotapes," it said. "Such materials are subject to confiscation, although   
   > rules appear to be applied arbitrarily."   
   >   
   > In a 2003 report on Saudi Arabia, the U.S. Commission on International   
   > Religious Freedom, an independent watchdog set up under the 1998   
   > International Religious Freedom Act, said: "Customs officials regularly   
   > confiscate Bibles and other religious material when Christian foreign   
   > workers arrive at the airport from their home countries initially or return   
   > from a vacation."   
   >   
   > Inquiries about the legality of Bibles and about the shredder claims, sent   
   > to the Saudi Embassy in Washington and the Saudi Information Ministry in   
   > Riyadh, were not answered by press time.   
   >   
   > Koran vs. Bible   
   >   
   > After Nalliah left Saudi Arabia in 1997, he went to the U.S. and took part   
   > in the lobbying effort on Capitol Hill in support of what eventually became   
   > the International Religious Freedom Act, signed into law the following year.   
   >   
   > He heads an evangelical ministry in Australia, where late last year he and a   
   > colleague became the first people to be found guilty under a controversial   
   > state religious hatred law, after Muslims accused them of vilifying Islam   
   > during a post-9/11 seminar for Christians.   
   >   
   > Nalliah said this week it did not surprise him that Muslims have reacted   
   > strongly to the claims that U.S. interrogators at the Guantanamo Bay base,   
   > where terrorism suspects are held, had thrown a Koran into the toilet.   
   >   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)