Tuesday, October 18, 2005

Arab freedom revolution continues (at snail's pace)

Stumbled across this today:

"A source in a private Saudi media company announced on Sunday that its company, in an agreement with Riyadh city secretariat, will display a children cinema retrospective during the three days of Eid al-Fitr to be the first cinema shown in the Kingdom, 20 years after banning such shows. The source said that the show will start on November 3 will be limited to women and children in the halls of one of the big hotels in the Saudi capital. The hall includes 1400 seats. Thirty year ago, the Saudi authorities used to permit the display of cinema films in private clubs but in the beginning of the 1980s prevented cinema shows in public places under the charge that they are religiously prohibited. On the other side, the authorities permit the use and selling of video films in public shops which sell tapes and CD ROM for most recent Arab and foreign films."

I am guessing that the dire risk of a unmarried man and woman touching hands in the darkness are behind the ban, but who knows.

It's pretty unbelievable, isn't it?

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