Threat to national security? Yeah, we’re not the religion who straps bombs to our chests and blows ourselves up in crowded markets on a daily basis.

BENGHAZI, Libya (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 per cent Muslim country and this kind of action affects our national security.” Mr 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 US passport.

“We are still holding interrogations and will hand them over to the Libyan intelligence authorities in a couple of days,” Mr Hmeid said, without giving further details.