Last edited: March 27, 2004


Saudi Police Bust ‘Gay’ Wedding

365Gay.com, March 1, 2004

By 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff

Medina, Saudi Arabia—50 people, mainly foreigners, have been arrested at what Saudi police say was a gay wedding.

Police raided a guest house where the ceremony was under way after a tip was called in to the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, otherwise known as the religious police.

Investigators say that invitations to the ceremony indicated it was a gay function and they say that the behavior of the guests was “suspicious” since many of them fled the venue as soon as the police cars were spotted coming down the street.

Homosexuality is illegal is Saudi Arabia, punishable by public floggings or imprisonment or both.

The men, mostly Chadian, all deny the ceremony was a gay wedding. They say they were having a bachelor party for one of the men who is about to marry a woman.

Earlier Monday, a human rights group released a report on civil rights abuses against gays in Egypt which detailed systematic roundups of men suspected of being gay, prison beatings and the use of electric prods.


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