Crown Prince bent on reforms but is the country ready?
LAHORE: A Saudi women fitness centre has been shut down because a so-called ‘indecent’ video showing a woman kicking and punching a punching bag at the gym of the centre went viral. The general sports authority shut the centre on the pretext that the woman in the video was not wearing her headscarf while boxing. The authority said the video contained scenes that could corrupt public morals.
On the one hand, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia is trying to introduce reforms to take his country out of the medieval mindset, his ministers, on the other, are bent on forcing people to abide by the rules they perceive are right. Either the Crown Prince is in denial that Saudi Arabia is a conservative country or that he has not taken all his ministers into confidence on his plans to make the state a modern and progressive nation.
These issues should be sorted out because they are once again affecting the already marginalised segment of society in the kingdom — its women.
Muhammad Ali
Published in The Express Tribune, April 23rd, 2018.
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