Tag Archives: Saudi Arabia

An interesting article from the Atlantic: The Saudi government’s obsession with the criminalization of the dark arts reached a new level in 2009, when it created and formalized a special “Anti-Witchcraft Unit” to educate the public about the evils of sorcery, investigate alleged witches, neutralize their cursed paraphernalia, and disarm their spells. Saudi citizens are also urged to use a …

Details. Sadly, there are no photos.

According to a report on Emirates 24/7, Saudi Arabia has banned gay boys and “tom boys” from attending government schools and universities. The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, the most feared law enforcement authority in the oil-rich country, has been asked to enforce the new orders, Sharq Arabic language daily said. “Instructions have been issued …

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has graciously extended the right to vote to women. “We refuse to marginalize the role of women in Saudi society in every field of work,” Abdullah said yesterday on state television. “Women have the right to submit their candidacy for municipal council membership and have the right to take part in submitting candidates in accordance …

A Saudi court has sentenced a man accused of having gay sex to 500 lashes and five years in prison. The 27 year-old man, who was arrested by the kingdom’s religious police, was also convicted of publishing photos on the internet and on mobile phones of himself wearing women’s underwear, the newspaper reported without giving his name. The court fined …

Saying that his life is in danger and that if he goes back to Saudi Arabia “they will kill me openly in broad daylight,” a gay Saudi diplomat has requested asylum in the United States. The diplomat, Ali Ahmad Asseri, the first secretary of the Saudi consulate in Los Angeles, has informed U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials that Saudi …

In Mecca, Saudi Arabia is building the world’s largest clock atop what will be the world’s second-tallest building. The structure is meant to help further Saudi Arabia’s goal to establish Mecca as the replacement for the global standard of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). Bearing a striking resemblance to both St Stephen’s Tower, which houses the bell of Big Ben, and …

An Islamic cleric in Saudi Arabia has issued one of the most bizarre fatwas yet. Via Salon: As many of us know, women and men in Saudi Arabia must be careful not to mingle, as the insanely strict Islamic law bans mixing between the sexes who are not related. Recently, the Saudis have issued a fatwa that forces women who …

A man in Saudi Arabia has been sentenced to 1000 lashes and a year in prison for appearing in an internet video in which he dresses as a policeman and appears to be making sexual advances to an unseen male detainee. A 27-year-old Saudi man from Jeddah has been sentenced to 1,000 lashes, a year in jail and a fine …

Those scandalous Saudi women, daring to show BOTH eyes! A Muslim cleric in Saudi Arabia has called on women to wear a full veil, or niqab, that reveals only one eye. Sheikh Muhammad al-Habadan said showing both eyes encouraged women to use eye make-up to look seductive. The question of how much of her face a woman should cover is …

(From Married To The Sea via Ballad Of A Ladyman)

This month’s issue of The Atlantic features a fascinating article on gay life in Saudi Arabia. The author, Nadya Labi, investigates and contrasts the historical acceptance of gay behavior in Arabic nations versus the emerging concept of gay identity, and how the two are colliding in the increasingly Westernized Arabic world. In Saudi Arabia, sodomy is punishable by death. Though …