WHEN RELIGION TURNS INTO MADNESS : SAUDI MAN ARRESTED FOR GIVING OUT FREE HUGS

 

When does religion turn into madness?  When humane gestures are perverted into acts of sin, that's when.

But let's start from the beginning.  

A Saudi man, a young handsome feller, with nothing to hide, stands on a street corner holding up a sign that reads, as seen above, "Free Hugs".

Now one would be inclined to deny that the harmless gestures would warm the hearts of many.  And it did, since many took him up on the offer.  

But lo and behold, the infamous religious police made swift work of his goodness and he was carted away for violation of some religious tenet. 

Now let's reflect for a moment.  Saudi Arabia is the epicenter of a new epidemic, called MERS.  At first glance, his arrest, or detainment, or whatever it turns out to be, appeared to be an attempt at preventing the spread of the disease, which has now claimed 54 lives, and infected many more. 

But no, not such thing was true.  The young man was silenced and removed just for being un-Islamic.  

Now there has got to be some way to find out if indeed his conduct breaks some fundamental tenet of Islamic religion.  Or is there?

Although the video of the young man hugging people went viral, as did the campaign that underlies it, the fate of the man is now in the hands of a religious panel.  Hopefully international awareness will soften the panel's decision, but it remains a fact that he will be charged with something. 

The religious enforcement panel, better known as the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, which sounds like something out of a Monty Python skit, is the true scourge that shadows every Saudi citizen's move and pounces wildly on even the slightest violation. 

So the Commission so-and-so, charged the young man with engaging in "exotic practices".  It appears that the punishment for now, will be to sign a pledge not to ever repeat the feat.  The exotic practice violation was invoked because the act of hugging promotes, or stirs, impure emotions on the hugged ones, according to the Commission.  How they can prove such emotion was provoked, or even materialized, is another thing.  From the evidence, the three minute film, it appears that no one was taken over by unbearable lust.  

But let's go on.

Being the brave man that he is, the young feller turned around after duly signing and proclaimed that he would go on doing what he did without a pause, because he considered hugging an act of charity, which as anyone knows, is very much a pillar of Islam.  And it is a shame that a fine religion must be brought to ridicule with acts of enforcement such as the one suffered by the Saudi hugger.

The Commission so-and-so has a dark past.  In 2002, they forbid schoolgirls from escaping a burning building because they were not properly attired.  The sharia enforcement of the dress code resulted in 15 deaths and 50 brutally burned. 

Op-Ed

Partial Source : The Independent/  11.21.13