Chinese Ban Bibles From Olympic Village

Christian athletes will not be allowed to have a copy of the Bible during their stay in the Olympic Village in Beijing :

Chinese officials have announced athletes who compete in the 2008 Beijing Games will be banned from having Bibles in their Olympic village housing, and even visitors are being warned not to bring more than a single Bible with them when they come to China.

According to a report from the Catholic News Agency, Bibles will be among the list of "prohibited objects" for athletes at the Beijing housing complexes being built now for the thousands of athletes expected to participate.

"According to the Italian daily La Gazzetta dello Sport, organizers have cited 'security reasons' and have prohibited athletes from bearing any kind of religious symbol at Olympic facilities," the report said.

The article doesn't mention whether Islamic athletes will be barred from bringing in copies of the Koran.

This is something that could be easily fixed. The Chinese desperately want the Olympics to go well (much as Germany did in 1936). If some backchannel contacts were made between the Americans and the Chinese, all they would have to do is suggest that either the ban on Bibles is dropped or the Americans won't be coming. And not only that, the American TV network that's supposed to pay the Chinese hundreds of millions of dollars won't be coming either because there won't be any interest in televising an Olympic games without Americans.

I have a feeling the ban would be reversed pretty quickly.

UPDATE: Chinese denying the story:

BEIJING (Reuters) - China reacted angrily on Thursday to reports in the European press that the government would ban Bibles during next year's Beijing Olympics, saying it could not possibly be true.

The reports, one of which appeared in Italian sports newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport, were picked up by the Catholic News Agency and spread to U.S. media sites.

"The facts show that this news is a total rumour," Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao told a news conference. "The Chinese government has not come up with any such rule.

"China's religious affairs authorities and the Olympic organisers have not -- and could not -- issue a rule banning the Bible in the Olympic village."