I have read several articles that said Saudi Arabia had banned camera phones, but I never found any authoritative source that confirmed that. Well, I found a good source as well as reading that Saudis are purchasing camera phones despite the ban.
Arab News on November 28, 2003 (okay, so it's an old article; shoot me!) writes in its headline: "Banned Camera Phones Selling Like Hot Cakes in Jeddah's Black Market." The article says camera phones were banned in September 2002 at the recommendation of Saudi Arabia's chief of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (no, I didn't make that up) who said men were secretly taking photographs of women.
Camera phones are being imported from neighboring Gulf states and sold for up to twice the normal price.
Many people in the Kingdom think the banning is futile and wrong. Arab News quotes Abdul Rahman Al-Rashid, editor in chief of the Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper.
Good advice
Al-Rashid says, “preventing abuse of technology must be done through education, not through prohibition. Most people use the camera attachments on their phones for good purposes, some are useful to engineers and doctors and home buyers, others use them for innocent communication. Only very few people misuse them.”
I think the head teacher of Shoeburyness High School in the U.K. (previous entryt) should listen to Al-Rashid.
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