Saudi Arabia isn’t exactly shy about dishing out equally bizarre and disturbing laws which completely ignore basic human rights, but this one could be one of the weirdest yet.
A senior Saudi cleric has banned people taking pictures with their cats and says taking any photos in general is prohibited.
Why? I hear you ask. Well, Sheikh Saleh Bin Fawzan Al-Fawzan claimed it wasn’t a ‘necessity’ when he was asked about the ‘new trend’ of taking pictures with cats during a televised broadcast.
They claimed that it has been spreading among people who want to be like the Westerners, but this sheikh was pretty blunt in his response.
He said:
What?! What do you mean pictures with cats? Taking pictures is prohibited. The cats don’t matter here. Taking pictures is prohibited if not for a necessity – not with cats, not with dogs, not with wolves, not with anything.
The video was shared on YouTube back in April, then translated and released by the Middle East Media Research Institute.
To be honest, it’s difficult to be surprised at what these guys do anymore, considering one of the countries family therapists gave advice on wife beating and another cleric declared chess as forbidden in Islam.
And lets not forget their piss poor human rights record either, coupled with the fact that they’re pretty quick to dish out harsh punishments to their citizens, executing 152 people in 2015 alone, according to Amnesty International.
With that in mind, surely they have bigger things to worry about then their beef with cats?
