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December 27, 2005
Saudi Arabia: Islamic Decree Makes Phone Firms Censor Calls
The Scotsman covers this story, as does Reuters via Cnet News, the Australian, the UK Mirror and All Headline News, with 40 other renditions available on the internet.
In Lebanon on the LBC TV channel there is currently running a "reality" show called Star Academy, which features a group of young men and women staying in a house, and doing auditions, while voters phone in text votes to decide who stays and who goes.
Like Britain's execrable Fame Academy, the show is popular. It began its third series last week, with 19 hopefuls embarking on the challenge, which has an ultimate prize of a recording contract. Among the contestants are two 21-year old Saudi men.
After its second run earlier this year, the show was widely criticised by fundamentalist Muslims, and it received a fatwa in May in Saudi Arabia. A young Saudi, Hisham Abdulrahman, had won the prize in April and had received a hero's welcome upon his return from Lebanon, and widespread adulation, but clerics decided the show was "against Islam".
With two Saudis now in the running for the prize, there are plenty of Saudis willing to vote. But if their cellphones are part of the network owned by Saudi company Saudi Telecommunications Co, they will have a problem. STC has announced that in respect of the fatwa, they will block all customers from text-voting on the contestants in Star Academy.
STC is the largest phone-provider in Saudi with 10 million subscribers. It is also joined in its ban by the younger firm Mobily, which is owned by Etisalat in the UAE, and has about 2 million Saudi subscribers.
Humoud Alghodaini, a spokesperson for Mobily, said that the program was culturally inappropriate. "It shows men and women living in one house, sometimes semi-naked and in inappropriate situations," he said.
Alghodaini admitted the company would lose money, but said that if they did not obey the fatwa "it would backfire on us and affect our brand."
It seems the show is less strict and devout than the Iraqi talent show, "Iraq Star" which we described in August.
Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at December 27, 2005 8:20 AM
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