Saudi Head of Religious Police Criticises Agents for Handling of 'Nail Polish' Row
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH:
The head of the Saudi religious police has criticised agents for clamping down on a woman who was wearing nail polish, after the video went viral, attracting more than a million hits on YouTube.
The three minute video posted on May 23 shows
members of the religious police telling the woman to "get out" of a shopping mall. But she refuses to comply, saying "I'm staying and I want to know what you're going to do about."
In an interview with the daily newspaper
al-Watan, Sheikh Abdullatiff Abdel Aziz al-Sheikh, said: "The world is manufacturing airplanes and we are still telling a woman 'leave the mall because you've got nail polish on your fingers'."
“I was very disappointed by what I have seen. The matter has been exaggerated and negatively exploited,” Sheikh Abdullatiff, head of the
Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, later told the AFP news agency.
“The way the member of the commission behaved was not right, even if the girl had gone too far. He should have offered her advice and left instead of arguing with her and escalating [the matter]."
The video has been viewed more than one million times, but her behaviour attracted scores of negative comments online.
One posting said she had "no shame" and accused her of "prostituting" herself. Another called her a "slut" and a "whore."
» | Thursday, June 07, 2012
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