The men used social media to organize a show to pick the “most beautiful dog in Jeddah.” The top three owners were to win prizes during the Eid festival to mark the end of the holy month of Ramadan. After the arrest, city officials announced that the contest would be cancelled.
The infamous morality police look for dog owners and report them as violating the Islamic view of dogs as “unclean.” Formally known as the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, the force has been regularly accused of thuggish and abusive actions. They raid birthday parties to arrest people dancing. The religious police force that has been a constant presence in the Kingdom, such as arresting a woman having coffee with colleagues, and 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.
So now the morality police are arresting dog lovers and stopping the threat of dog shows to Islam. Once again, this is one of our closest allies against Islamic extremists.