Jeddah’s criminal court clears dog beauty pageant organizers

Representational image of a dog. (Photo courtesy: social media)

JEDDAH: According to Sabq e-newspaper, the Criminal Court in Jeddah cleared the Dog Beauty Contest organizers of a charge addressing moral and religious indecency.
The contest, which had created controversy on social media, was canceled by Jeddah municipality on Eid Al-Fitr 2016.
The Criminal Court had held several sessions to examine this case, in which the prosecutor requested the application of Paragraph 2 of Article 6 of the Anti-Cyber Crime Law, imposing jail up to 5 years and a fine of more than $3 million.
After hearing the accused, the court decided that publishing the contest on Snapchat and WhatsApp was not moral indecency like alcohol, gambling and other moral crimes.
The Criminal Court decided that there was no crime and conferred the case to the Court of Appeal, which upheld the decision.
This contest was announced on social media on Eid Al-Fitr 2016 and led Jeddah municipality to announce on Twitter: “Legal procedures and punishments will be taken against the organizers.”