Tuesday, Nov 23, 2004
GLOBAL VILLAGE
For those heading to Saudi Arabia, the restrictions on what items can be taken into the kingdom now include the latest in mobile technology: camera-equipped phones.
The government banned the import and sale of phones with cameras in March, after reports that people were being photographed surreptitiously, particularly women. But the injunction, which includes most new phones on the market, has sparked a battle between those who want it overturned, including the Saudi ministries of trade, finance, interior and technology, and Sheikh Saleh bin Abdulaziz al-Sheikh, the grand mufti of Saudi Arabia and the country's highest religious authority.
The difference of opinions on this issue reflects more generally tensions within the kingdom between reformers and modernisers and the more conservative, religious forces.
The use of camera phones and possible invasion of privacy has worried a number of countries. Several US states have forbidden their use in public places and in the UK there has been a call for such a ban in schools, while in Japan and the United Arab Emirates, men have been prosecuted for taking voyeuristic photos of women without their consent. Donald Rumsfeld, US defence secretary, even prohibited the use of phones in US military installations in Iraq after suspicion that the damming Abu Ghraib prison photos had been taken with camera-fitted phones.
But only in Saudi Arabia have camera phones been declared illegal everywhere. But they are still readily available, smuggled in from the UAE or Bahrain and sold on the black market. The Saudi paper Arab News even reported that they were still being advertised on billboards in Jeddah.
Over the summer reports of "misconduct" by owners of camera phones started to circulate, prompting the police to confiscate the mobiles when seen used in public.
One particular incident that caused an outcry involved a video clip of a woman being raped. The footage had been taken with a camera phone and passed around through phones. Newspaper reports say three men, two Saudis and a Nigerian, were arrested in connection with the rape.
The Al Arab Yawm daily also reported that a woman had been expelled from university for taking pictures of her female friends and distributing them over the internet. In another incident, high school students in Riyadh complained to their principal about a fellow student with a camera mobile phone. The local head of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice - the feared religious police - was called in to deal with the situation. He reportedly destroyed the phone with a mallet "as a disciplinary act and a lesson for others to learn from".
In July, a wedding turned violent after a female guest was caught taking pictures of other guests in the women-only section of the celebration. Scuffles erupted and several guests were taken to hospital, according to local newspaper reports.
It is unclear why the woman was taking the pictures. But in several Arab countries where men and women mix little, weddings are often an occasion for mothers to pick out possible brides for their sons. In Saudi Arabia, men and women who are unrelated do not mix at all. Women are sensitive about being photographed, especially when they are in private and unveiled.
The official ban did little to deter mobile camera users, however. So in October, the grand mufti issued a fatwa or religious edict banning phones with built-in cameras, blaming them for "spreading vice and obscenity". The International Islamic News Agency also quoted him saying that under sharia or Islamic law the exchange of text messages on mobile phones between boys and girls could lead to "forbidden things" and could pose a danger to the "modesty and chastity of the girls involved".
But now four Saudi ministries have appealed to King Fahd to reverse this ban. They say the phones have become a "fait accompli,like television and the internet" and rather than banning them, the kingdom should teach the public to use them responsibly and find ways to enforce the guidelines.
Saudi Arabia imports about 6m mobiles a year. The ministers argue that most mobile phones will be equipped with cameras. If these are banned in Saudi Arabia, companies will have to produce special phones destined for the kingdom, which will drive up the price.
But even if the ban is reversed, the mufti's fatwa may remain - unless Mr Sheikh can be convinced to let modernisation run its course and allow those calling for a pragmatic attitude towards the advances of technology to score a point in the greater battle for reform in the kingdom. www.ft.com/globalvillage
By KIM GHATTAS
Copyright The Financial Times Ltd 2004. Privacy policy.
