Saudi Edict Bans Mobile Phone Cameras

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – Saudi Arabia’s highest religious authority has barred the use of mobile phones with built-in cameras, blaming them for “spreading obscenity.”

The edict, which follows a failed ban on the sale and import of the wildly popular devices, is the most sweeping attempt by any nation to prevent the voyeurism invited by the new technology.

Camera-equipped phones have caught on fast in parts of Asia, Europe and the Middle East – particularly in oil-rich Gulf countries – prompting complaints 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 that camera phones are misused to photograph women without their knowledge.

A recent wedding in Saudi Arabia ended in brawls 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 checks phones on entry for built-in cameras.

So far, however, only Saudi Arabia has taken drastic steps, banning the import or sale of camera phones and declaring them religiously forbidden. Cellular shutterbugs risk having their phones confiscated, being fined, or even spending up to a year in jail.

But despite the March ban, phones have remained widely available, easily smuggled in from neighboring Bahrain or the Emirates.

Sheik Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah Al al-Sheik, Saudi Arabia’s highest religious authority, announced the new religious edict Tuesday in remarks to al-Madina daily newspaper.

The devices, he said, were “spreading obscenity in Muslim society,” the newspaper reported Wednesday. “All citizens should renounce this (the use of cell phones with cameras) … for it can harm everybody without discrimination.”

Violators “should be strictly confronted and punished,” the paper quoted him as saying.

Saudi Arabia is one of the most conservative societies in the world, with strict segregation of the sexes in public places. Women are legally forbidden to drive and must be covered head-to-toe in public.

Many celebrations are also segregated, allowing women to shed their black veils and loose outer robes.

However, a wedding party in July in southern Saudi Arabia turned violent after a female guest was caught taking photographs with her telephone, according to newspaper reports. Scuffles broke out and spread to the men’s section. Some guests reportedly were hospitalized.

In another instance, a Saudi woman was expelled from her university in March for taking pictures of unveiled colleagues with her phone and posting them on the Internet.