Thirty-five men has been arrested in Saudi Arabia for what officials are claiming is their participation in a “gay party,” reports the PeninuslaTimes.org. The men were arrested in the early morning of April 4 in a suburb of Jeddah, a city in the Hijaz Tihamah region on the coast of the Red Sea and a major urban center of western Saudi Arabia. It is the largest city in Makkah Province, the largest sea port on the Red Sea and the second-largest city in Saudi Arabia after the capital city, Riyadh.
The men, who were at a beach resort, were detained by police and security officers for the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention – informally known as Haia – some approximately 4,000 men that patrol the streets of the King’s nation enforcing strict Islamic dress codes and the separation of the sexes among its many other tasks.
According to the Al-Weeam Web site, a portal for Arabian news, “Among those arrested were a group “of men wearing women’s clothes. Neighbors allegedly contacted Haia officials because they heard loud music being played at the party in the Al-Samer neighborhood, east of Jeddah. The police took the arrested to the Samer Police Department and withheld the dresses and the music equipment.
Disturbingly, although not entirely shocking, is that the whereabouts of the men are not known as of this report.
In 2010 Prince Saud bin Abdulaziz bin Nasir al Saud was charged with the murder of his male companion as well as sexually abusing his servant and paying other men for sexual services. More recently, a gay diplomat named Ali Ahmad Asseri applied for asylum in the United States after the Saudi government discovered his sexuality. It is unclear how many people have been executed or actually arrested for same-sex relations as they are often combined with other offenses.
