ARAB NEWS: JEDDAH, 3 February 2008 — Have you ever wondered why some advertisements in Jeddah show people’s faces while others have the faces marked out?
Well, you aren’t alone. Even the responsible authorities wonder why some advertising agencies still produce signs where the faces of the people in the advertisements are digitally blurred out.
The habit of defacing images stems from a traditional aversion in Saudi Arabia toward depicting the human face in images, such as advertising billboards. But Saudi authorities say there is no law against showing advertisements without the alterations.
“There is no rule or regulation that enforces the deformation of a human figure or face in any advertisement,” Ahmad Al-Zahrani, an official at the Ministry of Information and Culture, told Arab News yesterday.
Nevertheless, some advertising agencies appear averse toward depicting human faces. “What is happening is self-imposed censorship,” said Qaswara Al-Khateeb, head of the advertising committee at the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
Khateeb says ad agencies tend to deface their signs in order to avoid any complaints from people, especially authorities, who might use this as a pretext for having the ads removed, or for otherwise getting the agency in trouble.
He said that since most agencies are foreign owned, they tend to be extra cautious in matters that might be interpreted locally as a violation of religious or cultural mores. Is Defacing of Images in Outdoor Adverts Forced? >>> By Hasan Hatrash
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