Petrelis Files

Saudi Officials Arrest Twenty Men at "Gay Wedding"

This troubling news came my way from two good friends, each on polar opposites of the political spectrum, who independent of the other sent me this article from the South African Press Association - Agence France-Presse wires, showing that for at least two of my buddies, when the issue is the treatment or abuse of gays in the Middle East and other parts of the globe, they want me to see the news and bring it attention.

An excerpt from the only story so far on this case:

Riyadh - Saudi authorities arrested 20 young men after raiding a suspected gay wedding in the southern town of Jizan, a newspaper reported on Wednesday.

The detainees, who were among some 400 men attending "the wedding party of two men" on Tuesday, had been "emulating women," the Al-Watan paper said.

In all, some 250 people were detained in the police raid on the party but the rest were later released [...]

Some guests were also seen chewing qat, an illegal narcotic widely used in neighbouring Yemen, on a hill above the square where the party was being held, Al-Watan said.

Homosexuality is illegal in conservative Saudi Arabia, which metes out strict punishments based on sharia, or Islamic law.

The GayMiddleEastReport.com site has a trove of background information and stories about the violations of human rights protections for gays in Saudi Arabia. Click here to start reading the collected stories.

You know me, I read something like the article about the latest arrests and I want to throw together a press conference at a Saudi consulate, but there isn't one in San Francisco. If I lived in Washington or New York, I'd be organizing an action at the Saudi embassy or mission the United Nations.

(Photo credit: Brett Lock, OutRage!UK. London gays protesting at the Saudi embassy in May.)