Will Saudi Arabia lift ban on cam-equipped mobiles?

Four Saudi ministries have appealed to King Fahd to reverse a ban on camera-equipped mobile phones in the kingdom, a local newspaper reported on Monday, according to Middle East Online.

"The ministries of interior, finance, trade and industry, and technology said such mobiles have become "a fait accompli like television and the internet," Al-Eqtissadiah said.

The ministries argued that most mobile phones would soon have installed cameras and that having to manufacture special phones for the Saudi market "would increase prices significantly," it added.

According to the daily, a recent survey showed a drop in mobile phone sales at distributors' outlets while trade prospered in individual shops that continued to sell camera-equipped phones illegally.

The ban has contributed to an increase in smuggling such phones from neighbouring countries, the paper said, quoting market sources.

Saudi Arabia's grand mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh has said that trading in such mobiles is un-Islamic because they "could be exploited to photograph and spread vice in the Saudi Muslim community.

Related articles:

-- Religious edict bars camera phones in Saudi Arabia - Saudi Arabia's highest religious authority has issued an edict barring the use of cell phones with built-in cameras, blaming them for "spreading obscenity" — a final resort after a ban on their sale and import to the kingdom failed to dent their popularity

-- Saudi women beaten for mobile phone snapping - Two Saudi women were badly beaten by other female guests at a wedding party in the kingdom when they were seen using a mobile phone to photograph the segregated celebration

-- Mobile pictures spark violence - A wedding party in Saudi Arabia turned violent after a female guest was caught using her mobile phone to take digital photographs of other women at the celebration.

-- Footage of an assault in Saudi Arabia through cameraphones - A rape scandal broke after the two men reportedly circulated footage of the assault through mobile phones equipped with cameras.

-- Woman fired over mobile snapshots - A Saudi woman has been expelled from her university for taking pictures of unveiled colleagues with a camera-equipped mobile phone osting them on the Internet.

-- Saudi Arabia and phonecams When the Saudi people finally rise up in revolt and throw out the House of Saud," fellow Saudi blogger, Alhamedi Alanezi says, " it won't be for democratic reform, and it won't be for an islamic republic. It'll be about mobile phones".

-- Saudi Arabia enforces ban on camera phones - The Saudi government began enforcing a ban on the sale of camera-equipped mobile phones.

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Also

- Kuwait: Three years jail proposed for misuse of Bluetooth - A senior member of parliament has proposed a draft law stipulating a jail term of between six months and three years for the misuse of the Bluetooth technology, especially in mobile phones, in invading personal privacy.

emily | 3:55 PM | |
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