JEDDAH, 30 September 2004 — The grand mufti has condemned as un-Islamic trading in camera-equipped mobile phones which can take “illicit” pictures, Al-Madinah newspaper reported yesterday. Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Asheikh said such phones “could be exploited to photograph and spread vice in the community.”
The denunciation came amid reports that there is no judicial law in the Kingdom that bans the lawful use of or trading in such phones. Local newspapers quoted an Interior Ministry spokesman as saying that police are more concerned about how camera-equipped mobile phones are being used than whether someone owns it or not.
He said restrictions on such phones at private functions such as those held in exhibition halls are the responsibility of the organizers of such events.
Camera-equipped mobile phones are apparently widely used in the Kingdom and are often the center of controversy. Two Saudi women were badly beaten by other female guests at a wedding party earlier this month when they were seen using a mobile phone to photograph the segregated celebration.
In July, two young men were arrested for orchestrating and filming a sexual assault on a 17-year-old girl by a Nigerian driver. The footage was widely circulated through a camera-equipped mobile.
