MUHAMMAD HUMAIDANJEDDAH: Saudi Arabia’s Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah Al-Asheikh has warned young men and women against watching pornography on the Internet and satellite channels in his Friday sermon at the Imam Turki bin Abdullah Mosque in Riyadh.
“The eyesight is a bounty given to us by Allah so we should not misuse it,” he said, adding that it is sacrilegious to sell or circulate CDs containing pornography. “This is a means to deviate the youth and corrupt society,” he said, adding that modern technology should be used to benefit man, and for educational purposes. The mufti was referring to the recent announcement by the Saudi Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC) that said it had blocked about 240,000 Internet sites in six months, of which 95 percent were pornographic.
The CITC said Internet subscribers have gone up from five percent in the year 2001 to 40 percent this year to reach 11 million people. It also said there are currently 47 million mobile phone service subscribers with 85 percent of them using prepaid services. It also said there are 4.3 million landlines in the Kingdom of which 74 percent are at private homes. Arab News