MASS ARRESTS AT SAUDI GAY PARTY

Religious morality police in Saudi Arabia have arrested 35 people at an alleged “gay party” in a suburb of Jeddah.

The officers from the feared Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice swooped on the event in the early hours of Friday morning (4 April), reported peninsulatimes.org.

Some of those arrested were “men wearing women’s clothes,” said the Al-Weeam website.

Police were alerted by complaints from neighbours about loud music at the beach resort where the party was held.

The dresses and music equipment were confiscated. It is not known what has happened to those arrested.

In 2012, the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice was tasked with implementing orders for “gays and tomboys” to be barred from government schools and universities.

Homosexuality is illegal in Saudi Arabia and may be punished with imprisonment, corporal punishment and execution. These sentences are based largely on the whim of Islamic judges and clerics hearing individual cases.