Source: http://www.al-monitor.com
YouTube has become a vibrant alternative to traditional visual media like TV and has broken the monopoly the monotonous and boring Saudi official sources had over media in the country. Young Saudis have become freelance journalists producing their own video clips. A couple of years ago, it became common for Saudis to post video clips of young men and women being dragged away and detained by members of the state-appointed religious police, the Committee for the Prevention of Vice and Promotion of Virtue, known as the Haya, which means "committee." Most often, the victim was shown in the video as submissive and silent.
This is no longer the case in present-day Saudi Arabia. On May 23, a Saudi woman posted a video of her heated and animated encounter with a member of the religious police who had asked her to leave a shopping center.
When she demanded an explanation for her expulsion, the Haya agent pointed out that she was wearing excessive makeup and nail polish. Ironically, Saudi women are notorious for excessive spending on cosmetics.
She defiantly refused to leave, promising to teach the agent a lesson. She told him: "I am free, why are you looking at my face and nails? You have no right to expel me." She warned him that he was being filmed, and even asked him to smile in front of the camera.
Posted by Main at 02:21 AM. Filed under: News And Views •
