American Samizdat

Thursday, February 08, 2007. *
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. [...] 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.

[Article continues at link. Does the US government have any interest in finding out if some of these unidentified foreigners are US citizens? How about having a third-level assistant to an intern write a non-binding resolution to suggest setting up a committee to investigate the potential for expressing moderate disapproval of this event? Because we have to respect religion, always. Hands off religion. Especially the hands-off religion.]

Labels: ,

posted by Trevor Blake at 11:14 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment





Site Meter



Creative Commons License