You can look but don8217;t touch in Saudi Arabia

RIYADH, DEC 6: Saudi men spend their nights in the company of some of the planet's most beautiful women ... thanks to TV programmes beamed...

RIYADH, DEC 6: Saudi men spend their nights in the company of some of the planet8217;s most beautiful women 8230; thanks to TV programmes beamed down by satellite to the conservative Muslim kingdom. The creeping liberalism of foreign satellite TV 8212; and its quot;look but don8217;t touchquot; culture 8212; strikes a contrast with the strict rules laid down by the custodians of Islam8217;s holiest sites.

Except for street signs in Arabic, veiled women and the men in Arabian robes and headdress, parts of Riyadh with its office blocks, streets laid out at right angles, and fast food joints could easily be mistaken for a US city. But the Saudi capital has no cinemas, no theatres and no night-clubs, all of which are banned under the oil-rich Gulf kingdom8217;s strict interpretation of Islamic laws. Nightlife is restricted to restaurants and coffee shops.

Many Saudis choose to spend their evenings with the bikini-clad girls of the US soap Baywatch, or with female singers and beauty queens, all courtesy the satellite channels. The rage is a new type of coffee shop where each table has its television and remote control to zap through the channels. So as not to disturb the peace at night, local authorities have restricted such coffee shops to the outskirts of the capital, in suburbs which lie some 30 minutes8217; drive from downtown Riyadh such as Thumama.

The quot;shisha-cafesquot; are named after the nargileh, or water pipes, which keep the clientele company as they watch TV. Thumama alone has seven such cafes, each of which covers several thousand square metres. One of them, Al-Umam the nations, can accommodate 400 customers in front of 250 TV sets. It is packed on Thursday nights, the Muslim weekend. Customers can sit on cushions on the ground, in true bedouin fashion, or on high wooden chairs which is the custom in Hijaz province, in Syrian fashion among marble fountains, or in a cafe-trottoir complete with palm trees.

quot;There8217;s nowhere else to go out and have fun,quot; said Abdellatif, tuned in with his friends to a music video by Lebanese singer Marie Suleiman. On the next table, Egyptian belly-dancer Dina kept the customers entertained, one of them twisting the pipe of his nargileh in tune with the music. Dancing as such is banned. Al-Umam is open only to men, while two other cafes in Thumama are for families, or men accompanied by their wives, daughters or mothers.

The coffee shops are surrounded by high walls, in deference to the religious class which keeps a close watch on social manners, women8217;s dress and segregation of the sexes. The cafes are seen as quot;a safety valve in a society which is deprived of the means of innocent entertainment such as the cinema,quot; according to a Saudi businessman. But despite the acceptance of satellite TV, certain bans are untouchable such as that on alcohol. Saudi Arabia8217;s version of quot;champagnequot; is apple juice mixed with fizzy water.