Photo cameras banned in Saudi

Link : http://uk.news.yahoo.com/040930/344/f3m3t.html


Saudi Arabia's highest religious authority has barred the use of mobile phones with built-in cameras, blaming them for "spreading obscenity" -- a final resort after a ban on their sale and import in the kingdom failed to dent their popularity.

Camera-equipped phones are wildly popular throughout the Middle East and particularly in oil-rich Gulf countries, but there has been concern they are misused in conservative Muslim societies to photograph women without their knowledge.

A 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.