Saudi Arabia says cinemas will be allowed from early 2018

[webfact]

Saudi Arabia says cinemas will be allowed from early 2018

 

DUBAI (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia said on Monday that public cinemas would be allowed in the conservative kingdom and the first cinemas were likely to open early next year.

 

"As the industry regulator, the General Commission for Audiovisual Media has started the process for licensing cinemas in the Kingdom," Minister of Culture and Information Awwad bin Saleh Alawwad said in a statement.

 

"We expect the first cinemas to open in March 2018.”

 

(Reporting by Sami Aboudi; Editing by Andrew Torchia)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2017-12-11

[thaibeachlovers]

Joke right?

 

They might allow cinemas but if one thinks it'll be like in the west, think again.

I used to fly Saudia, and they even censored SKIPPY .  The Robin Williams film Mrs Doubtfire was unwatchable after they cut large parts of it.

Perhaps they will just show the same garbage they show on tv, and if it's at prayer time they will probably cut to Mecca.  Wow, I'm missing it already.

[observer90210]

Heavy doubts that they will have a brand new, gold clad movie theatre, with leather seats, screening porn ?!!

[Morch]

Blasphemy.

Women drivers. Seaside resorts. Cinemas.

The country is going to the dogs.

 

[vogie]

I know a lot of islamic countries have a music ban which is a massive problem if you rely on selling ice cream from a van.

[masuk]

15 hours ago, vogie said:

I know a lot of islamic countries have a music ban which is a massive problem if you rely on selling ice cream from a van.

 

15 hours ago, vogie said:

I know a lot of islamic countries have a music ban which is a massive problem if you rely on selling ice cream from a van.

Aaah.  The sweet sounds of Greensleeves echoing through the suburbs.  

There is certainly no limit on music or volume in the world's largest Muslim community (Indonesia).

The success of a marriage party seems to be the number of truck-mounted loudspeakers they have out in the street.

[vogie]

27 minutes ago, masuk said:

 

Aaah.  The sweet sounds of Greensleeves echoing through the suburbs.  

There is certainly no limit on music or volume in the world's largest Muslim community (Indonesia).

The success of a marriage party seems to be the number of truck-mounted loudspeakers they have out in the street.

Sorry I can't take the credit for the 'joke' it comes from a song by Frank Skinner. I sure anybody with a sense of humour will enjoy.

 

[RuamRudy]

Good to see another sign of progress within the country. Obviously they still have a long way to go to appear normal in most westerners' eyes, but they should be encouraged for taking even tentative steps forward. Hopefully the first of a long line of reforms for the better.

[boomerangutang]

....additionally, the ruling monarchists will allow free thought in 2019.   Naw, just kidding.  If you're born in S.Arabia, you're a Muslim (of a particular sub-sect of a sect) for life, like it or not.  You're not allowed to think differently from precepts laid down 700 years ago.  If you stray, you can get stoned.  Any questions?

[thaibeachlovers]

1 hour ago, RuamRudy said:

Good to see another sign of progress within the country. Obviously they still have a long way to go to appear normal in most westerners' eyes, but they should be encouraged for taking even tentative steps forward. Hopefully the first of a long line of reforms for the better.

Depends on what one thinks is progress.

Saudi would have been a brilliant country to live in except for the mutawas. If a meteor were to fall on them while every mutawa was gathered together, it might actually become a great place to live.

However, saying cinemas will make it better is a very long stretch.

[ilostmypassword]

1 hour ago, boomerangutang said:

....additionally, the ruling monarchists will allow free thought in 2019.   Naw, just kidding.  If you're born in S.Arabia, you're a Muslim (of a particular sub-sect of a sect) for life, like it or not.  You're not allowed to think differently from precepts laid down 700 years ago.  If you stray, you can get stoned.  Any questions?

First off, Islam is about 1400 years old so I'm not sure about why you think these precepts date back only 700 years.If you're referring to the establishment of the Salafi sect, that doesn't go back nearly so far. And lots of stuff, like women having to wear a burka, are not in the Koran nor in the Hadiths. Like lots of other fundamentalists, their precepts aren't necessarily so fundamental.

[RuamRudy]

37 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Depends on what one thinks is progress.

Saudi would have been a brilliant country to live in except for the mutawas. If a meteor were to fall on them while every mutawa was gathered together, it might actually become a great place to live.

However, saying cinemas will make it better is a very long stretch.

The concept of better in this matter is as subjective as it is relative, although I was not so crass as to suggest that the Ritz Riyadh was the panacea we all might hope for to accomplish better. Many people complain that SA is a backward, medieval country yet when a glimmer of reform appears on the horizon, they are still criticised.  

[Morch]

3 hours ago, boomerangutang said:

....additionally, the ruling monarchists will allow free thought in 2019.   Naw, just kidding.  If you're born in S.Arabia, you're a Muslim (of a particular sub-sect of a sect) for life, like it or not.  You're not allowed to think differently from precepts laid down 700 years ago.  If you stray, you can get stoned.  Any questions?

 

Everything you posted above is factually incorrect.

 

[ilostmypassword]

4 hours ago, boomerangutang said:

....additionally, the ruling monarchists will allow free thought in 2019.   Naw, just kidding.  If you're born in S.Arabia, you're a Muslim (of a particular sub-sect of a sect) for life, like it or not.  You're not allowed to think differently from precepts laid down 700 years ago.  If you stray, you can get stoned.  Any questions?

 

1 hour ago, Morch said:

 

Everything you posted above is factually incorrect.

 

Really?

"Children born to Muslim fathers are by law deemed Muslim, and conversion from Islam to another religion is considered apostasy and punishable by death."

https://www.state.gov/j/drl/rls/irf/2013/nea/222311.htm

[JemJem]

I think we should VERY CAUTIOUSLY welcome this piece of news.

 

Very cautiously, because : 1) Will Saudi citizens be allowed in them ?  2) Will women be allowed in them ?  3) Will the authorities manage not to back down if there are protests by the Islamists ?

 

If the answers turn out to be 'yes', then great !

[Morch]

52 minutes ago, ilostmypassword said:

 

Really?

"Children born to Muslim fathers are by law deemed Muslim, and conversion from Islam to another religion is considered apostasy and punishable by death."

https://www.state.gov/j/drl/rls/irf/2013/nea/222311.htm

 

Other than argumentative nitpicking, anything on offer?

But if you insist: the post replied to specified stoning. As far as I'm aware, In Islam, stoning in generally associated as punishment for adultery, not apostasy.

[ilostmypassword]

1 hour ago, Morch said:

 

Other than argumentative nitpicking, anything on offer?

But if you insist: the post replied to specified stoning. As far as I'm aware, In Islam, stoning in generally associated as punishment for adultery, not apostasy.

Talk about nitpicking! For you the salient point is not that it was capital punishment for apostasty but how it's administered. I would love to see this in the mouth of an indignant mullah. "I resent your calumny that we are barbarians who execute apostates by stoning. For them it is beheading.!" 

[boomerangutang]

1 hour ago, Morch said:

Other than argumentative nitpicking, anything on offer? But if you insist: the post replied to specified stoning. As far as I'm aware, In Islam, stoning in generally associated as punishment for adultery, not apostasy.

Picky picky. 

 

[ilostmypassword]

1 hour ago, Morch said:

 

Other than argumentative nitpicking, anything on offer?

But if you insist: the post replied to specified stoning. As far as I'm aware, In Islam, stoning in generally associated as punishment for adultery, not apostasy.

 

1 minute ago, boomerangutang said:

Picky picky. 

 

It is to laugh.

[Morch]

13 minutes ago, ilostmypassword said:

Talk about nitpicking! For you the salient point is not that it was capital punishment for apostasty but how it's administered. I would love to see this in the mouth of an indignant mullah. "I resent your calumny that we are barbarians who execute apostates by stoning. For them it is beheading.!" 

 

You seem to conveniently forget who initiated the nitpicking.....and obviously the point of the stoning comment went right over your head (or rather, you pretend it did).

[Morch]

11 minutes ago, boomerangutang said:

Picky picky. 

 

 

Doesn't make your post any more accurate. Guess that "picky picky" is your way out of acknowledging it.

[Morch]

10 minutes ago, ilostmypassword said:

 

It is to laugh.

 

Obvious troll is obvious...

[ilostmypassword]

16 minutes ago, Morch said:

 

You seem to conveniently forget who initiated the nitpicking.....and obviously the point of the stoning comment went right over your head (or rather, you pretend it did).

This calls to to mind Ogden Nash's poem The Purist.  Because of Fair Use rules, I can only quote the last 3 lines. A professor's bride has gone missing in the jungle:

 

She had, the guide informed him later,
Been eaten by an alligator.
Professor Twist could not but smile.
"You mean," he said, "a crocodile." 

https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-purist/

 

[Morch]

@ilostmypassword

 

Congratulations on derailing yet another topic with your irrelevant, petty arguments.

[ilostmypassword]

17 minutes ago, Morch said:

@ilostmypassword

 

Congratulations on derailing yet another topic with your irrelevant, petty arguments.

For the last time, it is not significant how the Saudis kill people convicted of blasphemy. It is significant that their law does prescribe killing people for blasphemy. You're the one who raised this issue. Not me. If it's a derailment, it began with you.

[Morch]

40 minutes ago, ilostmypassword said:

For the last time, it is not significant how the Saudis kill people convicted of blasphemy. It is significant that their law does prescribe killing people for blasphemy. You're the one who raised this issue. Not me. If it's a derailment, it began with you.

 

I "raised the issue" in response to your nitpicking post. Glad I could sort it out for you. Seem like all them petty arguments you start leave you confused about your own posts.

 

 

 

[JHolmesJr]

And after a comprehensive review pending investigation and appeal and national referendum, popcorn will be introduced in 2019.

[gk10002000]

So full service restaurants, drinks, reclining chairs?  Here in Florida those types of cinemas are all over the place and they make for a nice night out.

[Skeptic7]

Wow...another small step closer to the 20th Century! 

 

Not impressed.

[Scott]

I am getting REALLY, REALLY tired of the nonsensical nit-picking and to be fair, I WILL put all participants on suspension if it continues.  

 

It's completely up to you.