Foreigners arrested for trying to spread Christianity in Libya

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

Foreigners arrested for trying to spread Christianity in Libya

BENGHAZI, Libya | Sat Feb 16, 2013 4:10pm EST

(Reuters) - Four foreigners have been arrested in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi on suspicion of being Christian missionaries and printing books about Christianity, a security official said on Saturday.

"They were arrested on Tuesday at a publishing house where they were printing thousands of books that called for conversion to Christianity," security official Hussein Bin Hmeid said.

"Proselytizing is forbidden in Libya. We are a 100 percent Muslim country and this kind of action affects our national security."

Hmeid said the government-affiliated security apparatus called the Preventative Security, for which he is a spokesman, had arrested an Egyptian, a South African, a Korean and a Swede who was travelling on a U.S. passport.

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Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/16/us-libya-arrests-idUSBRE91F09120130216

[polly7]

1. It's a shame.

"He said Libya had as many as 100 000 Christians before the 2011 revolution that toppled Gaddafi. “Now only a few thousand remain.”

The main Catholic Church's clergyman in Libya told the Vatican missionary news agency Fides earlier this month that Christians are being driven out of eastern Libya by Muslim fundamentalists.

The Apostolic Vicar of Tripoli, Giovanni Innocenzo Martinelli, said the situation in that region was “critical” and the “atmosphere very tense.”

http://www.iol.co.za/news/africa/libya-christians-fear-rise-of-islamic-extremism-1.1467781#.USAWXKVhCSo