Saudi Arabia bans more than 10,000 copies of 420 books at annual fair
Unprecedented move seen as part of effort to clamp down on any dissent in kingdom
Saudi authorities have banned hundreds of books, including works by renowned Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, as part of a crackdown on publications deemed threatening to the conservative kingdom.
Saudi Arabia clamped down on dissent following the Arab Spring uprisings of 2011, from which it has been largely spared, and has adopted an increasingly confrontational stance towards the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist groups it has long viewed as a threat to its security.
The local Okaz daily reported on Sunday that organisers at the Riyadh International Book Fair had confiscated "more than 10,000 copies of 420 books" during the exhibition.
The religious police frequently intervene to enforce the kingdom's strict conservative values, but this kind of move to ban so many works was unprecedented.