Posted on 09/29/2004 1:28:52 PM PDT by Michael Goldsberry
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia -- Saudi Arabia's highest religious authority has issued an edict barring the use of cell phones with built-in cameras, blaming them for "spreading obscenity" -- a final resort after a ban on their sale and import to the kingdom failed to dent their popularity.
Camera cell phones have caught on fast throughout Asia, Europe and the Middle East, particularly in oil-rich Persian Gulf countries, prompting concerns about privacy in places where people undress, "theft" of reading materials at book stores and newsstands, and corporate espionage by employees.
As a result, the devices have been banned by gyms, retailers and companies in many nations. Even in the United States, where camera phones have taken longer to gain popularity, there is a bill in Congress that would make the taking of illicit photos on federal property a crime punishable by up to a year in prison and fines.
But the concern goes even further in conservative Muslim societies, where religious authorities complain camera phones are misused to photograph women without their knowledge.
A wedding in Saudi Arabia ended in a brawl over the photographing of women, and young men in the glitzy malls of the United Arab Emirates have been warned by police not to surreptitiously photograph female shoppers. In Egypt, a women-only beach on the northern Mediterranean coast bars cameras and all cell phones are checked on entry to make sure they don't have cameras.
So far, however, only Saudi Arabia has taken the drastic step of banning the import or sale of camera cell phones and declaring them religiously forbidden.
(Excerpt) Read more at chron.com ...
Hey!! Somebody stole my collection of nude Osama Bin Laden photos!
Photographing a burka is "obscenity".
at least they have high tech phones over there :/
whats the difference anyway in taking a picture with a phone or with a camera?
or are cameras banned there aswell?
no, but using them practically is, when i was on liberty in bahrain, a buddy and i went to saudi to shop, i had a disposable camera and took a picture of a mosque and a "cop?" ran over and started to ask what i was taking a picture of, and i showed him the mosque then he told me that there was a government building in the background and had to confiscate my camera. the building he showed me was a little corner of a building far away with no way of knowing what it was from my camera, he stood firm and i had to give up the camera.
Ford and GM ban these phones from their premises and do not allow employees to bring them to work due to concerns about patent and intellectual property theft.
Welcome to His Royal Highness's Kingdom, American Infidel dog!
It wasn't the "government building", it wasn't the mosque, either. It was you, you light skinned, round eyed excuse for a camel's butt.
That's the way it was twenty years ago. Some things never change.
That British Airways pilot on my first trip to Saudi was right when he announced the local time over the intercom upon landing at Jeddah:
"Ladies and Gentlemen, its 2 AM Local time. Please set you watches back 500 years.
Must be a whole lot of pics of little boys being taken?
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