RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – A Saudi court convicted a man and sentenced him to four months in prison and 90 lashes for kissing a woman in a mall, a government-owned daily reported Thursday.
Saudi religious police arrested the man and two women after seeing them on mall cameras “engaging in immoral movements in front of other shoppers,” the Al-Yom newspaper said.
The man, who is in his 20s, was seen with a woman “sitting on one of the chairs, exchanging kisses and hugs.” It was unclear what the other woman was doing.
The kingdom’s powerful religious police, under the control of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, enforce Saudi Arabia’s strict interpretation of Islam, which prohibits unrelated men and women from mingling.
Zealous officers routinely jail unrelated couples found sitting together in restaurants or coffee shops.
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