RIYADH -- When it comes to promoting traditional values, Saudi Arabia’s religious police have a notorious reputation. They regularly rebuke and detain women for wearing makeup or for not properly veiling, which they consider a violation of the kingdom's conservative interpretation of Islam.
But when members of the force detained an apparent cross-dressing bakery mascot (yes, you heard us right) last week, even Saudis seemed taken aback by the bizarre events.
The incident has gone viral here after images were posted on social media and a statement was released by the religious police, called the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice. As part of a promotional campaign, a well-known pastry shop in a southern suburb of the capital, Riyadh, had a man dress in a costume depicting an unveiled Muppet-like woman wearing ample makeup and a blue gown.
The costumed man, who could not be reached for comment, appeared in photographs posted on Twitter and Instagram to be greeting potential customers. But the attire exposed a little too much, apparently prompting a number of complaints. In Saudi Arabia, women generally must cover their hair and, in some areas of the country, faces.
In a statement, the religious police said they intervened to “remind” the offending bakery mascot of religiously acceptable dress code. The police briefly detained the man, who “expressed regret” about the incident, the statement said. Some of the images that went viral show the man, still in costume, apparently sitting in the back of a vehicle used by the religious police.
Perhaps that explains why so many Saudis responded to the incident with embarrassment. Still, many more appeared to mock it – incessantly. One man on Twitter jokingly referred to the man in costume as a female doll who should have been accompanied by a male guardian, which women in the kingdom require for many activities. “The doll is an irresponsible teenager,” he wrote.
Another man sarcastically wrote on Twitter that the doll "had a lot of makeup on because it wanted to seduce people.” One women, warned, tongue in cheek, that “if she were harassed, no one could save her" except for the religious police.
Still, for many in a country that observes a particularly austere version of Islam, the incident was no laughing matter. A large number of Saudi Arabia’s 28 million residents hold deeply conservative views about religion and women, who are forbidden to drive here and require a man’s permission to travel abroad.
As a result, many support the religious police, which until recently used canes to pacify transgressors and once even forced a group of women back into a burning building because they were not covered. Fifteen of those women ended up dying as a result. That may explain why some have supported the religious police during the mascot mash-up. This includes men who expressed concern that a man would dress as a woman, which conservative residents here reject as a violation of religious law. The religious police “are entitled to do this because the doll resembled” a women, one man wrote on Twitter.
But sarcasm seemed to win out, with many Saudis posting photographs of people in other Muppet-like costumes pretending to be the bakery mascot’s mother or father. One man tweeted a photo of a Muppet-like man on the telephone saying, “This is not my daughter and I don’t know her, officer.”
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