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Rights group assails Saudi drag party arrests
Agence France-Presse First Posted 17:36:00 06/25/2009 Filed Under: Overseas Employment, Gender Issues
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RIYADH—US-based Human Rights Watch called on Saudi authorities on Wednesday to drop charges against 67 Filipino men facing charges for dressing in women's clothes and alcohol violations.
"If the police in Saudi Arabia can arrest people simply because they don't like their clothes, no one is safe," Rasha Moumneh, a researcher for the rights group, said in a statement.
The 67 Filipinos along with a Yemeni were arrested at a private party and drag show in a resort villa near Riyadh on June 13.
According to Philippines embassy vice consul Roussel Reyes, the men face possible lashes and jail time for both cross-dressing charges and violating Saudi Arabia's strict ban on alcohol.
HRW criticized Saudi Arabia's Islamic sharia-based legal system as uncodified and undefined, with laws arising from clerics' interpretations of the Koran and other Islamic texts.
"No written and accessible legal standards exist that criminalize the wearing of women's clothing by men," HRW said.
"Nevertheless, Saudi judges have in the past imposed sentences, ranging from imprisonment to flogging, on men accused of behaving like women."
The men were all released to their employers following the arrests while formal charges are drawn up.
Some one million Filipinos work in Saudi Arabia.
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Philippine Consulate General in Jeddah
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