RIYADH, 23 October 2006 — A segment from the popular Saudi satire program “Tash 14” which pokes fun at the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice has burst forth on the Internet. The segment never aired but has somehow found its way onto the World Wide Web.
The daily Al-Watan reported this week that the clip has been downloaded at least 40,000 times.
The clip satirically portrays the religious police 45 years ago in a neighborhood in Riyadh smiling, behaving nicely and respectfully reminding merchants to close their shops at prayer times. The segment then jumps forward to today and portrays the agents rudely demanding proofs of marriage from people on the street, unapologetic when they don’t find any moral misbehavior from their suspects.
In one scene, commission members approach some Saudi youths and demand to search their mobile phones for objectionable content.
A segment that aired this season shows the religious police harassing a group of young men playing an innocent game of cards drinking non-alcoholic beer and then, disappointed that no moral infraction was found, haul the young men off to the barbershop.
“Tash 14” (which translates roughly as “Slipped Away, season 14”) has received considerable media attention this year for testing the Saudi public’s tolerance for self-parody, especially in reference to the touchier subjects of religious extremism and, in the case of this clip that never aired, the religious police.
The Saudi public is seemingly divided on whether the show has crossed a line or whether it is breaking new ground in critically satirizing certain perceptions and customs.
In another clip that aired this season, characters propose to separate Riyadh into two sections: one for women and the other for men.
In another, two men debate whether a woman should be allowed to ride on a donkey and, if so, should the donkey be female.
