Saudi men arrested for 'flirting'

[tayfah_mansurah]

Prosecutors in Saudi Arabia have begun investigating 57 young men who were arrested on Thursday for flirting with girls at shopping centres in Mecca.
The men are accused of wearing indecent clothes, playing loud music and dancing in order to attract the attention of girls, the Saudi Gazette reported.

They were arrested following a request of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice.

The mutaween enforce Saudi Arabia's conservative brand of Islam, Wahhabism.

Earlier in the month, the authorities enforced a ban on the sale of red roses and other symbols used in many countries to mark Valentine's Day.

The ban is partly because of the connection with a "pagan Christian holiday", and also because the festival itself is seen as encouraging relations between the sexes outside marriage, punishable by law in the kingdom.

The Prosecution and Investigation Commission said it had received reports of such "bad" behaviour by 57 young men at a number of shopping centres in the holy city of Mecca, the Saudi Gazette said.

The guardians of some of the men defended their actions, however, saying they would regularly get together at the weekend to have fun without ever violating laws governing the segregation of the sexes, it added.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/mid...st/7260314.stm

[al-Athari]

I saw this all the time while I was in Makkah, but its worse in Madinah (at least to me).

[Hibiscus]

Subhan Allah, they do this in Mecca? So shameful

[Salsabil]

Alhamdulillah, good muslims are still strong there, mashaAllah!

[nomad]

Doubt they were arrested. We saw pot smokers as comfortable as cockroaches in sqwat down toilets, on the path outside ikea in jeddah on friday night. Long draws, passing of the spliff and the whole kaffiry to do, sat on carpets on the path.. They didnt even try to hide it when we approached them with 5 kids. Even in uk, the youth, put it down or use some kind of shame to say sorry around kids. Here it seems as though its legal as amsterdam.....

And then its illegal to have valentines day?

Sorry but you gotta live here to understand what a mixed up life the saudis are living.