Saudi woman arrested for wearing miniskirt
A Saudi woman has been arrested for defying the kingdom’s strict dress code by walking around in a miniskirt and crop top in a video that sparked public outrage.
The woman, whose name was not given, was detained by police in the capital, Riyadh, for wearing “immodest clothes” that contradicted the country’s conservative Islamic dress code, state media reported yesterday.
Police referred her case to the public prosecutor, according to the official Twitter account of state-run TV channel al-Ekhbariya.
In the video, which has gone viral since first emerging on Snapchat over the weekend, the woman is filmed walking around a historic fort in a miniskirt with no one else around.
The short video, shot in a village in the desert region of Najd, where many of Saudi Arabia’s most conservative tribes and families are from, is followed by other shots of her sitting in the desert.
The video sparked a Twitter hashtag that called for her arrest, with many saying she flagrantly disobeyed Saudi rules, which require women living in the kingdom to wear long, loose robes known as abayas in public. Most Saudi women wear a headscarf and veil to cover the face.
Social media is wildly popular in Saudi Arabia as a space to vent frustrations and gauge public opinion.
The outcry against the video and the woman’s later arrest reveal how powerful and widespread conservative views are in the kingdom, despite recent moves by Saudi Arabia to modernise and loosen some rules.
But strict gender segregation rules and other restrictions on women remain in place. Women are not allowed to and cannot obtain a passport or travel abroad without a male relative’s permission.
Saudi writer Waheed al-Ghamdi wrote on Twitter that while the woman violated Saudi laws, her actions did not warrant such an outcry because they did not harm others.
Some of those defending her posted images from US President Donald Trump’s visit in May, in which First Lady Melania Trump and his daughter Ivanka, though modestly dressed in higher necklines and longer sleeves, did not cover their heads or wear abayas.