Saudi governor orders flirtatious men to get haircuts

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — A governor in northern Saudi Arabia has ordered authorities to punish men who flirt with women in public places by cutting their hair, local media said Tuesday.

Prince Fahd bin Badr, governor of the northern al-Jof region, ordered police to carry out the punishment after seeing a group of men with long hair pestering female students as they left school in the northern al-Qurayat province, Al-Hayat newspaper said.

It said the prince told a gathering at his palace in the northern town of Skaka on Sunday he has instructed police to apply the punishment to all youths guilty of flirting, including "the sons of senior military and civil officials."

Many clergymen in this conservative Gulf country say men should not have long hair because Islam prohibits the sexes from emulating each other.

Sheik Mubarak al-Rushoud, head of the commission in al-Jof, told Al-Hayat the new punishment resulted from "the repeated pestering of women in souks and outside girls' schools."

He said Fahd has ordered that the punishment against the men "who emulate women" should be carried out at the scene of the infraction, according to the paper.