https://youtu.be/IUYBz6GNPqE
The Wshington Post – Adam Taylor
A young woman is at the center of a controversy about clothing in Saudi Arabia, after she posted videos of herself in one of the nation’s most conservative provinces wearing a short skirt and a cropped top.
The woman has been arrested by Riyadh police for wearing “suggestive clothing,” Saudi state television station Al Ekhbariya reported Tuesday.
The brief clips, originally posted to the social network Snapchat over the weekend by a popular user named Khulood, show the woman walking through an ancient fort in Ushayqir, a village in Najd province about 95 miles from the capital, Riyadh.
The woman wears a skirt that stops above her knees and a top that shows her midriff; her head is also uncovered.
Such an outfit runs afoul of conservative Islamic ideas about women’s dress that are prevalent in Saudi Arabia. The country legally requires women to cover themselves while in public by wearing an abaya, a loosefitting cloak. Traditionally, Saudi women are also expected to wear some kind of hijab or head covering, and some opt to cover their face with a niqab.
Although foreigners are usually exempted from such rules and Saudi women often find ways to skirt them, many religiously conservative Saudis feel strongly about them.
Ushayqir appears deserted in the videos, but Khulood’s video soon spread online and quickly drew criticism — with many Saudis using a hashtag that said the woman should face trial for the videos.
Some argued that as the woman lived in Saudi Arabia, she should accept its laws. “Just like we call on people to respect the laws of countries they travel to, people must also respect the laws of this country,” Saudi writer Ibrahim al-Munayif wrote on his Twitter account.
But others offered their support for the woman, suggesting her behavior was brave and that prominent foreigners sometimes dress similarly when visiting Saudi Arabia, and they are exempted from the country’s dress codes. Many of them pointed out that Melania Trump and Ivanka Trump did not wear abayas when they visited the country in May, to little public outcry.
