Jeddah coffee shops raided

Truant schoolgirls in meetings with unrelated males, large screens set up to show “scandalous films”, stages for music performances with light and lazer displays: Offenses too grave to be ignored by the authorities and too glaring to be continued on the sly for long.

It did not take much time for the Jeddah authorities to realize that a number of coffee shops were, in fact, places for dating and other offenses. Officials from the Police, Passports Department, Civil Defense, the Labor Office, the Mayor’s Office and the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice raided suspect sites over recent days.

In one instance a 14-year-old girl was found in the company of two males in their twenties after reportedly sneaking out of her house without the knowledge of her family. In another, two sisters were found with six young men.

In a secluded corner of one coffee house a young man was found in the company of a woman with a computer screen before them displaying a pornographic website. The man confessed to officials that he hacked sites with the woman’s help and pirated material.

Coffee houses that had set up stages for music performances with light and laser displays, held parties or had large screens showing banned television channels were ordered closed and their owners summoned and investigated by the Commission for Investigation and Prosecution.

Some of the coffee shops had employed security staff to warn of the arrival of authorities.

Other infractions included the employment of staff residing in the Kingdom illegally, and offering shisha without a license from the municipality.

Spokesman for Jeddah Police Misfir Al-Ju’aid, said that each case of khulwa – being in the secluded company of an unrelated member of the opposite sex – was handled according to its specifics.

“We take into consideration family relations and social regulations, or the girl is handed over to police and returned to her guardians,” Al-Ju’aid said. “Where regulations are found to have been breached warnings are given, but any legal violation results in on-the-spot action.