Life must be fun in Saudi Arabia

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Justin24

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http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=2848644
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RIYADH, Saudi Arabia Feb 4, 2007 (AP)— A Saudi Arabian judge sentenced 20 foreigners to receive lashes and spend several months in prison after convicting them of attending a party where alcohol was served and men and women danced, a newspaper reported Sunday.

The defendants were among 433 foreigners, including some 240 women, arrested by the kingdom's religious police for attending the party in Jiddah, the state-guided newspaper Okaz said. It did not identify the foreigners, give their nationalities or say when the party took place.

Judge Saud al-Boushi sentenced the 20 to prison terms of three to four months and ordered them to receive an unspecified number of lashes, the newspaper said. They have the right to appeal, it added.

The prosecutor general charged the 20 with "drinking, arranging for impudent party, mixed dancing and shooting a video for the party," Okaz said.

The paper said the rest of those arrested were awaiting trial.

Saudi Arabia follows a strict interpretation of Islam under which it bans alcohol and meetings between unrelated men and women.

The religious police, a force resented by many Saudis for interfering in personal lives, enjoys wide powers. Its officers roam malls, markets, universities and other public places looking for such infractions as unrelated men and women mingling, men skipping Islam's five daily prayers and women with strands of hair showing from under their veil.

In May, the Interior Ministry restricted the powers of the religious police to just arresting suspects, because the police sometimes had held people incommunicado and insisted on taking part in ensuing investigations.


Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
 
There is one obvious solution

Footloose.jpg
 
In Saudi Arabia it is. Also, playing music in pulbic is too. Yes, music is banned. How do people live??
 
Angela Harlem said:
Saudi Arabia has an horrendous human rights record. I've always wondered why it's not as talked about as other countries.

Because oil = good and "promoting liberty" = a pile of selective shit.
 
Judah said:
Yeah, Saudi Arabia is a pretty extreme theocracy.

Music is not disallowed in the Quran. There are some hadiths (traditions) that could be misread to believe music is disallowed; but there are just as many, or more, hadiths that promote music and singing.

Good overview here:

http://www.islamawareness.net/Music/prohibited.html

Thanks for a bit of perspective. Yeah this stuff is crazy, but Saudi Arabia is a really extreme case for a Muslim country. I live in a country that is 90% Muslim and there is plenty of drinking and dancing to do :wink: Although the majority of Muslims here do not drink alcohol themselves ( or at least not in public...), they certainly don't care if non-Muslims do. As for Islam not allowing music or dancing... pretty much every Muslim I know would say this is total non-sense!
 
Angela Harlem said:
Saudi Arabia has an horrendous human rights record. I've always wondered why it's not as talked about as other countries.

Sounds like a good question to ask "Bandar Bush."
 
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