Posted on 04/03/2004 4:47:54 PM PST by Land_of_Lincoln_John
JEDDAH, 4 April 2004 — Legal or not, mobile phones with cameras are alive and well in the Kingdom. They are openly on sale in phone souks and freely available over the counter in branded stores. To add to the confusion, the technically illegal Samsung E 700 is even advertised on a main thoroughfare in Jeddah.
The authorities are reacting.
Al-Yaum Arabic daily recently reported that a college student was expelled in the Eastern Province for taking pictures of her friends with her mobile phone camera on campus and distributing them via the Internet.
Parents complained to the college administration and the college disciplinary committee decided to expel her.
The college student affairs administration is investigating 50 other students caught with mobile cameras — and these were only the ones they knew about. One student particularly upset the college when she took photos of a staff member and posted them on the Internet, souring relations between students and teachers.
In the Riyadh area, students complained to their high school principal about a fellow student with a camera phone. Eventually, the head of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice in the region, Turki Al-Shamri, was called in to deal with the situation.
His chosen method was to destroy it with a large mallet, “as a disciplinary act and a lesson for others to learn from.”
Al-Shamri stressed that parents should make sure their daughters do not own, carry or use mobiles with cameras and that school administrations should be stricter in applying these regulations. This girl’s case has been taken to the Ministry of Education, and Al-Shamri said all mobiles with cameras are to be confiscated.
The intense dislike of camera phones being used to take secret photographs is not confined to Saudi Arabia.
In Japan and the UAE, men have been prosecuted for taking voyeuristic photos of women, and even Hollywood has become nervous. Camera phones are banned from film previews.
Last year, an Illinois village became the first municipality in the US to outlaw the use of camera phones in private places. (My note: This is an extreme exaggeration, it was the town was Elk Grove Village, and it applied to health club locker rooms).
Several states, including Wisconsin, California, Iowa, Washington and Louisiana, are considering taking similar action. (My note: It's safe to assume that the restrictions would be similiar to those of the Elk Grove Village, IL ordinance. Not Saudi Luddite banning and destruction that's going on here.)
Town Sports International, which owns and operates New York Sports Club, only allows cell phones to be used in the lobby, hallways and stairwells of its gyms.
“We saw that it could become a problem,” Town Sports spokeswoman Susan Gerson said. The company has banned the camera phones at its 130 health clubs in New York and Boston.
By 2006, 80 percent of the total number of cell phones sold in the United States and Europe will be camera phones claimed a recent study by the Gartner Group, a cell phone industry analyst.
Rules in Italy on the use of images taken with phone-cameras require that the images may be used for personal use only, that they be kept safe and that the subjects give written permission before their images can be used on the Internet.
Here, the phones are on sale and advertised. The fact that they are in the Kingdom in sufficiently large quantity as to be on sale in almost every store indicates they are being imported in bulk. But by whom and how, given customs regulations and the mountains of paperwork and intricate procedures importing goods into the Kingdom demands?
Syed Hussein, speaking for Samsung, assured Arab News the company neither imports nor sell camera phones, “as we are fully aware and respect the laws of Saudi Arabia.” But he stressed the company’s concern over “gray market imports.”
The gray market is often used to describe the illicit sale of smuggled goods in conventional outlets.
“Not only camera phones but all our star models are suffering because of the other channels through which these phones come into the Saudi Arabian market. We consulted with all the government departments with regards to this problem, and the government has assured us of action,” he said.
Other companies are facing similar problems created by what they describe as smuggled goods.
“All of us,” said Hussein, “are taking measures to curb this problem.”
Their camera phones are, however, still available and advertised widely.
We contacted Nokia, but at the time of going to print had received no reply. Their phones are on sale in many of the stores in Jeddah — some on display, but usually only obtainable by asking the assistants.
LG Electronics also emphasized the company’s adherence to the laws and customs of any country they do business with.
S.M. Arshad, the deputy general manager, said, “Gray imports are damaging to the national economy of any country. It is illegal, unethical and immoral. Since the camera-phone is a banned product in the country, we never considered importing it.”
Sounds like it was lifted from an Ayn Rand novel. But it's real.
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Aren't those the thugs who chased girls back into a burning school because they weren't "properly" veiled?
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