JEDDAH: The Jeddah Summary Court has denied a request to release a Saudi man who bragged in detail about his sexual adventures on an LBC weekly program so that he can be present during an examination of the case by the Ministry of Culture and Information.
The lawyer has also asked the court to stop the hearings until the ministry issues its decision.
Sulaiman Al-Jumaie, the lawyer for Mazen Abdul Jawad, has said that the case of violating community standards by boasting about sinful behavior on a satellite channel should be viewed as a media violation.
“I made this request to the court after I was informed by the ministry that the case was now being considered by a special committee of the ministry on print and publication violations,” he told Arab News.
“The ministry is the concerned authority to look at such cases and has the potential to do so,” the lawyer said.
The court, however, declined the request and said hearings would continue on Wednesday.
Through his legal representative, Abdul Jawad has filed his own complaint against LBC for what he claims was creative editing of about an hour of raw footage into a five-minute-long segment produced to make him look in the worst possible light.
Al-Jumaie has also demanded that LBC provide the raw, unedited footage of the interview with his client that was used to produce the segment on the program “Bold Red Line” in mid-July.
The lawyer says the ministry should be given time to investigate and rule on the complaint before the Summary Court moves forward to rule on his client’s alleged moral infraction.
The court could issue a decision on the matter as early as Wednesday. In addition to Abdul Jawad, three unnamed men who appeared with him on the program have also been detained and accused.
Furthermore, two journalists, both women, have also been summoned, but few details about them have been disclosed.
