Daily Lemon: Saudi Arabia bans red stuff ahead of Valentine's Day

Saudi Arabia bans red stuff ahead of Valentine's Day.
It appears that the Saudi Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice has asked florists and gift shops to remove all red items until after Valentine's Day, calling the celebration of such a holiday a sin. "As Muslims we shouldn't celebrate a non-Muslim celebration, especially this one that encourages immoral relations between unmarried men and women," Sheikh Khaled Al-Dossari, a scholar in Islamic studies, told the Saudi Gazette, an English-language newspaper. Every year, officials with the conservative Muslim kingdom's Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice clamp down on shops a few days before February 14, instructing them to remove red roses, red wrapping paper, gift boxes and teddy bears. On the eve of the holiday, they raid stores and seize symbols of love. The virtue and vice squad is a police force of several thousand charged with, among other things, enforcing dress codes and segregating the sexes. Saudi Arabia, which follows a strict interpretation of Islam called Wahhabism, punishes unrelated women and men who mingle in public. Because of the ban on red roses, a black market has flowered ahead of Valentine's Day. Roses that normally go for five Saudi riyal ($1.30) fetch up to 30 riyal ($8) on February 14, the Saudi Gazette said. [Via]

12 February 2008

Candy-coated cup to make kids take meds.
Should I cry or should I laugh? The lengths people go to to get our kids to eat more sugar is astonishing. Aren't kids fat enough? Kid-kups. [Via]

2 November 2007

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