From BBC News
The head of Saudi Arabia’s religious police has warned citizens against using Twitter, which is rising in popularity among Saudis.
Sheikh Abdul Latif Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh said anyone using social media sites – and especially Twitter – “has lost this world and his afterlife”.
Twitter was the platform for those who did not have any platform, he said.
His remarks reflect Riyadh’s concern that Saudis use Twitter to discuss sensitive political and other issues.
The conservative kingdom is believed to have seen the world’s fastest increase in the uptake of Twitter, says the BBC’s Sebastian Usher.
‘Losing battle’
The sheikh’s comments echo those of the imam of the Grand Mosque in Mecca in April who used his sermon – seen by millions on TV – to warn that Twitter was a threat to national unity, our correspondent says.
Earlier, Saudi Arabia’s grand mufti, the kingdom’s most senior Muslim cleric, had dismissed Twitter users as “fools”.
These rhetorical attacks are part of a concerted offensive by the Saudi establishment on the social network site, our correspondent says.
Many Saudis have seized on Twitter as the most immediate and effective way to open little windows into a traditionally opaque society.
