''Top Saudi imam riles at reality TV shows that promote ‘vice’ and spread ‘debauchery’ among Muslim faithful.
RIYADH - The imam of Islam's holiest site on Friday urged television executives in the Arab world to stop airing shows that spread "vice and debauchery," three days after the top religious authority in Saudi Arabia issued an edict banning the Arab version of Star Academy.
The condemnation of the reality TV show, broadcast by the partly Saudi-owned Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation (LBC), follows the suspension of the Arab version of Big Brother by Dubai-based MBC after the program came under fire for allegedly sanctioning promiscuity.
"By God, we exhort the people responsible for these (TV) channels to stop such programs" which promote "vice" and spread "debauchery" among the Muslim faithful, Sheikh Abdul Rahman al-Sudais told worshippers at weekly prayers in Mecca's Grand Mosque.
These programs, he said in a thinly veiled reference to Star Academy, which concludes Friday night, are "weapons of mass destruction that kill values and virtue," according to the official SPA news agency.
His remarks came three days after the Council of Senior Ulema, the top religious authority headed by Saudi Arabia's grand mufti, issued a fatwa, or edict, prohibiting the show, which is also carried around the clock on a separate satellite channel.
The fatwa urged businessmen "who fund these programs to fear God... and not use their money to destroy the youth of the Islamic nation."
The controversy over the hugely popular show, in which young Arab men and women have lived for months in the same house in Lebanon - although they sleep in separate quarters - comes close on the heels of the outcry which prompted MBC (Middle East Broadcasting Center) to suspend the Arab version of Big Brother a month ago.
Bahraini Islamists took to the streets to protest at the program, which was being produced in Bahrain and also showed young men and women from across the Arab world living in a villa in separate quarters but meeting in the lounge, kitchen and garden......''
Taken from here, Middle East Online, 04/04/04.
RIYADH - The imam of Islam's holiest site on Friday urged television executives in the Arab world to stop airing shows that spread "vice and debauchery," three days after the top religious authority in Saudi Arabia issued an edict banning the Arab version of Star Academy.
The condemnation of the reality TV show, broadcast by the partly Saudi-owned Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation (LBC), follows the suspension of the Arab version of Big Brother by Dubai-based MBC after the program came under fire for allegedly sanctioning promiscuity.
"By God, we exhort the people responsible for these (TV) channels to stop such programs" which promote "vice" and spread "debauchery" among the Muslim faithful, Sheikh Abdul Rahman al-Sudais told worshippers at weekly prayers in Mecca's Grand Mosque.
These programs, he said in a thinly veiled reference to Star Academy, which concludes Friday night, are "weapons of mass destruction that kill values and virtue," according to the official SPA news agency.
His remarks came three days after the Council of Senior Ulema, the top religious authority headed by Saudi Arabia's grand mufti, issued a fatwa, or edict, prohibiting the show, which is also carried around the clock on a separate satellite channel.
The fatwa urged businessmen "who fund these programs to fear God... and not use their money to destroy the youth of the Islamic nation."
The controversy over the hugely popular show, in which young Arab men and women have lived for months in the same house in Lebanon - although they sleep in separate quarters - comes close on the heels of the outcry which prompted MBC (Middle East Broadcasting Center) to suspend the Arab version of Big Brother a month ago.
Bahraini Islamists took to the streets to protest at the program, which was being produced in Bahrain and also showed young men and women from across the Arab world living in a villa in separate quarters but meeting in the lounge, kitchen and garden......''
Taken from here, Middle East Online, 04/04/04.
