He was concerned that it might lead to dancing:
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – 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.
Judge Saud al-Boushi sentenced the 20 to prison terms of three to four months and ordered them to receive an unspecified number of lashes, the newspaper said. They have the right to appeal, it added.
Well, at least they have the right to appeal. I guess we should be grateful. And scratch Jiddah off our “places to party” list.
As if.
Wow! One of the specified charges was “attending an IMPUDENT party”…
I don’t about the rest of you, but I don’t think you’ve really partied if the party wasn’t at least a little bit “impudent”!
I wonder what the penalty would have been if one were to be caught trying to “party down”!?
How impudent are you?
Guess I’d better dump my time-share in Jiddah….
Cue the soundtrack from “Footloose.” Where’s Kevin Bacon when you need him?
Baptists won’t do sex standing up because someone might think they are dancing.
Dammit, TOW, you beat me to the obvious obligatory Baptist joke! (I myself am still officially a lapsed Methodist.)
Which reminds me of a story. It seems there was a farmer out in his field one day, with his only son. Now the son was the only child of the farmer’s mature age, so Dad was happy to have the little sprout help, specially seeing that Dad’s eyes were starting to go.
Suddenly, the kid up and says, “Daddy, there’s a big black car just done drove up to the house!” Said Dad, “Well, who’s in it sonny?”
“Cain’t tell, Daddy, but I think it’s some kinda preacher, seein’ how he’s dressed.”
Dad thinks a bit, then addresses the kid: “Sonny, it’s a comin on to rain, and I have to keep working here, and do what I can. But I want you to run back to the house right quick and see which preacher it was that just drove up there.
If it’s the Methodist preacher, I want you to stand in front of the icebox and don’t move until he goes away. If it’s the Episcopal preacher I want you to stand in front of that cabinet where we keep the likker until he goes home.
If it’s the Baptist preacher, you jump right up in yore Momma’s lap and stay there!
“…women with strands of hair showing from under their veil…”
This describes some of the wide-reaching powers of the Saudi religious police; they roam malls looking for things like those stated above.
So an “impudent party” would seem pretty egregious, compared to stray strands of hair. And what about the fact that the people arrested were foreigners? Are they all Muslim? If they aren’t Muslim, are they still subject to the religious laws of a faith they don’t practice? Is this a case of when in Rome…?
lashes AND jail time… for attending a party.
damn. religion of peace… MY ASS
Religious police?
And to think all this time I’ve been worried about the telephone police! CRAAAAAAZY world or what?!