Saudi woman arrested after Snapchat video shows her dressed in skirt
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — A Saudi
woman has been arrested for defying the kingdom’s strict dress code by
walking around in a miniskirt and crop top in a video that sparked
public outrage.
The woman, whose name was not given, was detained
by police in the capital, Riyadh, for wearing “immodest clothes” that
contradicted the country’s conservative Islamic dress code, state media
reported Tuesday. Police referred her case to the public prosecutor,
according to the official Twitter account of state-run TV channel
al-Ekhbariya.
In the video, which has gone
viral since first emerging on Snapchat over the weekend, the woman is
filmed walking around a historic fort in a miniskirt with no one else
around. The short video, shot in a village in the desert region of Najd,
where many of Saudi Arabia’s most conservative tribes and families are
from, is followed by other shots of her sitting in the desert.
The video sparked a Twitter hashtag
that called for her arrest, with many saying she flagrantly disobeyed
Saudi rules, which require all women living in the kingdom, including
foreigners, to wear long, loose robes known as abayas in public. Most
Saudi women also wear a headscarf and veil that covers the face.
Social
media is wildly popular in Saudi Arabia as a space to vent frustrations
and gauge public opinion. The outcry against the video and the woman’s
subsequent arrest reveal how powerful and widespread conservative views
are in the kingdom, despite recent moves by Saudi Arabia to modernize
and loosen some rules.
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The country’s 31-year-old heir to the throne,
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, has pushed for greater openings for
entertainment in part to appease the youth, who are active on social
media and can bypass government censors online. More than half of Saudi
Arabia’s population is under 25.
The government
announced last week that girls would be allowed for the first time to
play sports in public school and have access to physical education
classes. The powers of the kingdom’s religious police have also been
curtailed, and they are officially no longer allowed to arrest people.
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Despite these moves, strict gender segregation
rules and other restrictions on women remain in place. Women are not
allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia and cannot obtain a passport or travel
abroad without a male relative’s permission.
After
the woman’s video surfaced, some Saudis expressed alarm, saying that
Twitter was being used as a tool to out other citizens.
Saudi
writer Waheed al-Ghamdi wrote on Twitter that while the woman violated
Saudi laws, her actions did not warrant such an outcry because they did
not harm others.
“I am simply questioning the
lack of priorities regarding anger and alarm expressed over human rights
violations and oppression versus the harmless personal choices of
others,” he wrote.
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Some
of those defending her posted images from President Donald Trump’s
visit to Saudi Arabia in May, in which First Lady Melania Trump and his
daughter Ivanka, though modestly dressed in higher necklines and longer
sleeves, did not cover their heads or wear abayas.
One
Twitter user, whose post was shared more than 1,700 times, superimposed
an image of Ivanka’s face on the young Saudi woman’s body, writing:
“Enough already, the situation has been solved.”
The
woman’s image was blurred on Saudi news websites reporting on the case.
It is common in Saudi Arabia to see heavily blurred or pixelated images
of women’s faces on billboards and storefronts – in stark contrast to
the many towering images of senior male royals displayed across the
country.
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