Saudi religious police leader says Twitter use will lead to hell

Beware Saudi Twitter users, for the top leader of the Saudi Arabia religious police says that he who uses the social networking service “has lost this world and his afterlife.”

The anti-Twitter rhetoric, which basically says that Twitter users are going to hell, comes from Sheikh Abdul Latif Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh and corresponds with a major uptake in Twitter use in the country, according to BBC News correspondent Sebastian Usher.

What religious leaders in the country are probably most worried about is that the surge in Twitter use could, potentially, help facilitate a public uprising in the country, as has been the case elsewhere in the Middle East, points out Mashable.

This concern about Twitter comes from leaders in the same country that refused to allow BlackBerrys unless the company formerly known as RIM made it easier for the Saudi government to monitor users’ messages.

BBC News points out that the imam of the Grand Mosque in Mecca has also condemned Twitter and the kingdom’s most senior Muslim cleric called Twitter users “fools.”