Saudi Arabia Bans Valentine's Day

CNN has the story.

The edict to ban Valentine’s Day is enforced by the Saudi Arabian “thought police.”

The virtue and vice squad is a police force of several thousand charged with, among other things, enforcing dress codes and segregating the sexes. Saudi Arabia, which follows a strict interpretation of Islam called Wahhabism, punishes unrelated women and men who mingle in public.

An example of the virtue and vice squad’s practices, from the above CNN article:

A businesswoman told the Times of London this month that she was detained and strip-searched by the religious police for holding a meeting in a coffee shop with male colleagues.

It sounds to me like the strip search was either a tool to humiliate the business woman or a justifiable way for the Saudi Arabian thought police to see naked female flesh. In either case, such an abuse of power is deplorable. What did they hope to find during a strip search?

Keep in mind these people are our close allies in the middle east. Isn’t (aren’t?) politics grand?

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3 Responses to Saudi Arabia Bans Valentine's Day

  1. Dez says:

    Guess which Middle Eastern country has the highest number of satellite service subscriptions to the Playboy Channel… *sniff… sniff* Ah yes, I had almost forgotten the pungent tang of hypocrisy.

  2. Matt says:

    While I don’t agree with their reasons, I’m all for banning Valentine’s Day.

  3. Pete says:

    I love you, Dez.

    No. Seriously.

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