Selfie mob prompts Saudi star's arrest

30 October 2015 - 02:05 By ©The Daily Telegraph

A Saudi actor has been arrested for disturbing public order after he was mobbed by a group of adoring female fans wanting to take selfies with him at a shopping mall in Riyadh. Abdul Aziz Al Kassar, who lives in Kuwait and was visiting Saudi Arabia for work, had sent a message to his followers on Snapchat, asking for recommendations on the best place to go shopping in the Saudi capital. Upon his arrival at Al Nakheel mall he found several young women waiting and asking to take selfies with him.He was arrested by the country's religious police, formally known as the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, for mixing with women unrelated to him and abusing social media. But he was later released on bail."I did not expect to find so many people waiting for me. I want to clarify that the presence of young women at the mall was not something under my control," he told Saudi news site Al Marsad."When I stepped in, several fans came over and surrounded me until someone came over and pulled me aside into a room that I learned was reserved for the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice inside the mall."Kassar must now await the decision of Saudi prosecutors on whether he used social media to meet women and took pictures with them in the shopping mall in breach of the law.Last year, Saudi Arabia's religious police beat up a British expat living in the country after he used a women-only cash till with his wife at a local supermarket, accusing him of breaking strict policies on sex segregation. ..

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