The conservative country's religious police feared three attractive men from the United Arab Emirates were "irresistible" to women
NEW YORK (TrustLaw) – It isn’t only a woman’s beauty that’s deemed too much of a potential temptation that she must be concealed under a head-to-toe abaya in Saudi Arabia. The country is now deporting men it considers to be so attractive that they are a threat to female propriety, The Telegraph reported.
Three male delegates from the United Arab Emirates attending the Jenadrivah Heritage and Culture Festival in the Saudi capital Riyadh were evicted from the festival earlier this month by religious police. The officers, from the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, removed them on the grounds they were “too handsome” and would prove “irresistible” to women, according to the Arabic language newspaper Elaph, The Telegraph said. They were later deported.
“A festival official said the three Emiratis were taken out on the grounds they are too handsome and that the commission members feared female visitors could fall for them,” Elaph reported.
The UAE released an official statement indicating that the Saudi religious police were concerned about the unexpected presence of an unnamed female artist who visited the UAE stand at the festival, the paper said.
It was unclear if the woman’s presence at the UAE stand was related to the decision by festival management to deport the three men back to Abu Dhabi, the capital of the Emirates.
In religiously ultraconservative Saudi Arabia, women are not permitted to interact with unrelated males.
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