JEDDAH, 4 October 2005 — Public reaction to a video clip of two Saudi girls in Riyadh being harassed by four young men has ranged from calls for public punishment to accusations of improper conduct by the victims and a poor upbringing by the men’s families. Some even called it terrorism, but outrage appears to be universal.
“We have the right to walk safely on the street,” said Fatima Muhsin, a student at King Abdul Aziz University. “What business do these men have in a family-only area? If this is the way they are going to behave in a family section, then I am for separating the two by force.”
Others favored public humiliation for the young men. “The best punishment for these animals is to show their faces with their full name in newspapers,” said Nadia Al-Ghamdi, a 29-year-old Saudi woman. “The way they behaved is not Islamic because Islam orders men to respect women’s dignity. These women could be our daughters, mothers or sisters. I bet these men wouldn’t agree for someone to treat their family members like that.”
Some said the punishment should extend to the families of the young men. “I was disgusted by what I saw on the Internet,” said Hisham Al-Emam, a student at Yanbu Industrial College. “I was shocked that such a thing could happen in our country and that there are people here who would distribute the clip on the Internet. I think the role of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice should be increased and that they should be present in these areas to prevent such harassment.”
Some people still say that such behavior is rare in Saudi Arabia.
“The Kingdom is still safe and I think that people are overreacting to the incident,” said Um Badr, the social supervisor at a government hospital. “People are talking about it as if it were happening daily on every street.”
She said the public outcry supports her idea. “In fact, the fact that people were shocked about it shows that it rarely happens, and they were shocked because it happened for the first time.” She views the offense as a psychological problem instead of a criminal one. “These men grew up in a disturbed environment because this is not the behavior of normal people. I think punishment will not do them any good. They should be treated instead.”
Others wonder if the young girls got themselves into the situation. “I think the full blame falls on the two girls for walking on the street like that at night,” said Nura Ali, a housewife. “What type of exercise did they want at night? Why they were walking alone? I think that by walking at night like that they are responsible.”
According to Okaz daily, the four young men confessed at the public prosecutor’s office in Riyadh; the file was then closed and sent to the high court. The young men confessed that they did not know the girls before the incident and that they deliberately distributed the video clip of the incident using both the Internet and Bluetooth. The men are expected to receive judgment within a few days.
Psychologist Samira Al-Ghamdi said that this kind of behavior could happen anywhere in the world, especially among young men but the important thing here is how to deal with it on a deeper level. “Some people are not aware of what is appropriate behavior between a man and a woman, and they misuse technology,” she said.
“Openness and development are not about using modern technology but also mental and social development. Not respecting each other’s privacy, not feeling safe in a public place and for men to treat women as objects rather than human beings is the key thing here,” she added.
She finds the young men’s behavior disgusting and embarrassing but we must know why they felt they could do something like that. Is it a personality disorder? If so, they need treatment rather than only legal punishment. “I hope that the blame does not fall completely on the girls for putting themselves in that situation, and I hope the culprit doesn’t become the phone camera again — as happened in the Panda case where the focus was on banning the sale of the phone as if it had recorded the incident on its own — instead of focusing on the misuse of the phone,” said Al-Ghamdi.
She also hoped that this incident would not be used to put more restrictions on women’s movement and access to public places.
