Saudi Cleric Muhammad Al-Munajid Warns: Freedom of Speech Might Lead to Freedom of Belief

"A journalist, or one of those lowlifes, wants to... These people are a mixture of Western, local, and imported ideologies, but they want to express their views with regard to religious rulings. This is the prerogative of religious scholars, not of ignorant people, the prerogative of knowledgeable people, not of fools or heretics.

[...]

The problem is that they want to open a debate on whether Islam is true or not, and on whether Judaism and Christianity are false or not. In other words, they want to open up everything for debate. Now they want to open up all issues for debate. That's it. It begins with freedom of thought, it continues with freedom of speech, and it ends up with freedom of belief. So where's the conspiracy? They say: Let's have freedom of thought in Islam. Well, what do they want? They say: I think, therefore I want to express my thoughts. I want to express myself, I want to talk and say, for example, that there are loopholes in Islam, or that Christianity is the truth. Then they will talk about freedom of belief, and say that anyone is entitled to believe in whatever he wants... If you want to become an apostate – go ahead. Fancy Buddhism? Leave Islam, and join Buddhism. No problem. That's what freedom of belief is all about. They want freedom of everything. What they want is very dangerous."

Al-Majd TV on March 30, 2008, Memritv.org (Transcript)

Hehe, this really cracks me up.

Saudi Crime News: 57 Men Arrested for Flirting at Malls

"Prosecution and Investigation Commission will start investigating on Saturday 57 young men arrested here by police for allegedly flirting with girls at local malls.
The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice summoned the police to make the arrests Thursday night.
The Commission had received reports of their "bad" behavior at different malls in Makkah.
The young men were accused of wearing indecent clothes and playing loud music and dancing to it to attract girls' attention.
A source at the Commission said that 20 of its staffers and policemen were dispatched to the troubled areas and police arrested the young men and transferred them to the Al-Mansour Police Station.
None of them resisted arrest, the source said.
The source added that those found innocent upon investigation would be released. The others would be referred to a court of law.
Guardians of some of the young men came to their defense, saying that the young men would usually get together on the weekend to have fun without violating the social code of conduct by imposing themselves on the girls at the malls."

Saudi Gazette, 23 February 2008

Try to read this with the voice of a news reporter.

Religious police ban red roses

"Saudi Arabia's religious police have banned red roses ahead of Valentine's Day, forcing couples in the conservative Muslim nation to think of new ways to show their love.
The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice has ordered florists and gift shop owners in the capital Riyadh to remove any items coloured scarlet, which is widely seen as symbolising love, newspapers said.
"They visited us last night," the Saudi Gazette quoted an unidentified florist as saying.
It is not unusual for the Saudi vice squad to clamp down ahead of Valentine's Day, which it sees as encouraging relations between men and women outside of wedlock, the newspaper said.
Saudi Arabia imposes an austere form of Sunni Islam that prevents unrelated men and women from mixing, bans women from driving and demands that women wear a headscarf and a cloak."

News.com.au, February 11, 2008

Why not also shut down postal services that day?

See also these pictures from Karachi (I guess).
Love.
Heart.

Saudi divorces wife for watching male TV host: report

"A Saudi man divorced his wife for watching alone a television programme presented by a male, an act he deemed immoral, the Al Shams newspaper reported on Saturday.

The man, whom the paper did not identify, ended his marriage on the grounds his wife was effectively alone with an unrelated man, which is forbidden under the strict Islamic law enforced in the ultra-conservative kingdom, the paper said.

Men in Saudi Arabia have the authority to divorce their wives without resort to the courts."

Yahoo/AFP, September 29 2007

We do use books that call Jews 'apes' admits head of Islamic school

"The principal of an Islamic school has admitted that it uses textbooks which describe Jews as "apes" and Christians as "pigs" and has refused to withdraw them.

[...]

[Dr Sumaya Alyusuf] said: "Yes, I do recognise these books, of course. We have these books in our school. These books have good chapters that can be used by the teachers. It depends on the objectives the teacher wants to achieve."

[...]

The school is owned, funded and run by the government of Saudi Arabia."

Thisislondon.co.uk 07.02.07

Long story. In short: Religious schools = propaganda schools.
(Found via politicsandreligion.wordpress.com)