Saudi Arrested for Sinful Speech

A Saudi Arabian man was arrested after bragging about his sex life on television, local media reported. Mazen Abdul Jawad appeared last week on a show on Lebanese channel LBC, where he went into "graphic details about his sexual conquests," according to Arab News, an English daily. A segment of the show "Red Line" posted on YouTube shows the 32-year-old talking about sex and foreplay. He also discusses losing his virginity to a neighbor while he was 14.

In deeply conservative Saudi Arabia, pre-marital sex is illegal and unrelated men and women are not allowed to mingle.
A government official told the newspaper that discussing sex in public is a punishable offense that may affect anyone involved in the broadcast.

"It is wrong to host people on television to speak publicly about vice and issues against our religion," said Ahmad Qasim Al-Ghamdi, director of Mecca's branch of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, also known as the religious police. "The program presents anomalies and deviancy in society that are unacceptable and immoral, and should be punished according to Shariah."

About 100 people have filed a complaint against Abdul Jawad, alleging among other things, that he violated a principle of Shariah law by "publicizing his sinful behavior," the daily said. It is unclear what punishment, if any, Abdul Jawad faces. See Chick's SIN BUSTERS.