Those crazy guys from the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice in Saudi Arabia are at it again. The Saudi religious police have long been viewed internationally as menacing clowns who beat and arrest people deemed immoral under the country’s medieval Sharia law. Indeed, it is often difficult to distinguish the enforcement of Islamic values by the Saudis from stories in The Onion. This is another such case. Saudi Arabian actor Abdul Aziz Al Kassar has been arrested in a shopping mall for “taking selfies with female fans.” That’s right, satanic selfies.
The religious police would be viewed as demonstrably deranged in any other country other than Saudi Arabia and Iran. They were recently raiding birthday parties to arrest people dancing. religious police force that has been a constant presence in the Kingdom arresting woman having coffee with colleagues or forcing young girls to burn to death in fire rather than run out without their scarves. Then there was the time that the religious police in Dammam marched into a popular dinosaur exhibit and shut it down without any explanation of why the dinosaurs threatened the virtue of good Muslims. Then there was the flogging of a women who insulted them. Then there are the round ups of religious people for simply praying at home. Then there is the arrest of a man for standing in line with his wife at a grocery store. The list goes on and on. Yet, we continue to label Iran as an extremist nation while embracing Saudi Arabia as a close ally despite the systemic denial of the rights of women, dissidents, Christians, and journalists.
So here is the latest victory of the Saudi religious police. Al Kassar was swamped by fans and simply accommodated with selfie pictures on October 23rd. He was promptly arrested and accused of disturbing the public order, mixing with women unrelated to him and abusing social media.
Al Kassar pleaded for forgiveness and insisted “the presence of young women at the mall was not something under my control.” He was pulled into a small room by one of the Saudi religious minions: “I understood that the man who pulled me was a member of the Commission – and I did not resist him out of my respect for the Commission.” If so, he is one of the few with any respect for the Commission.
So Saudi Islamic morals have been saved again from the ravages of post-stone age technology.
Saudi land should be returned 100% to the desert ecosystem. Let the “Saudis” export themselves to Israel where they can live with that country’s exemplary record of civil and human rights and compassion for refugees and foreigners.
I hate selfies. I hate selfie sticks even more.
The family name of those who control and terrorize Arabia should be removed from the name of the country. Their name glorifies the depravity they have imposed on that country.
It is clear they are not fans.
The only good thing that ever came from religion is Santa Claus.
It may be a third world garbage dump of idiots with unlimited funds but it’s our third world garbage dump of idiots with unlimited funds. They make ISIS look reasonable.
Did I ever mention that although the Bedouin were famous horsemen, they did have an obsession with keeping their horses “pure.” They rode beloved war mares into battle rather than stallions, because the mares wouldn’t bellow out a challenge to strange horses like a stallion would. But they jealously guarded the breeding lines each tribe perfected. So before riding out, they would sew up their mares’ vaginas to prevent any contamination from another tribe’s stallion.
So the culture has a long tradition of hyper fixation on control of sexuality. It’s as if they never evolved past their Puritan phase.
I hope things get better, but no progress so far.
That’s really repressive.
I suppose since women have no rights and are often given away to much older men with whom they are complete strangers, the entire country is paranoid that they are all plotting to commit adultery. That country spends way too much time worrying about what carnal thoughts a woman might be having, where she might be going, with whom she’s talking, and what she’s wearing. An inordinate amount of time and law is devoted purely to the complete control of Saudi women. How much money does the kingdom spend merely on enforcing modest dress, like the abaya?
This brouhaha was all because they were concerned that the women’s passions would become inflamed by their close proximity with an unrelated male, and that he could be plotting debauchery. Clearly, this could have devolved into an orgy, right there in the mall! Women were laughing and everything!
Religion is tyranny. It is by definition totalitarian, being a total solution to all aspects of life.
Blend it with government and censorship is the only result.