Photo: Dates

Saudi man inspects dates during the “Ahsa Festival for Palms and Dates” in the Eastern Province where total sales of dates reached SR4 million during its first three days. (Source: SPA)

Photo: Southwestern Saudi Arabia at Night

This image, taken last month from the International Space Station, shows the coastline of southwestern Saudi Arabia during night. The three brightly lit spots at top left are the cities of Jeddah, Mecca and Taif. The bright yellow-orange lighting in the middle of the image marks highways that parallel the trend of Asir Mountains, while the two bright yellow spots below it are cities of Abha and Khamis Mushait. (Source: NASA)

Photo: Sword Dancers

Men hold their swords to perform the traditional Ardha dance during Eid al-Fitr celebration in the province of al-Rass, central Saudi Arabia. (Source: SPA)

Photo: Miswak Man

Saudi man uses a miswak, a teeth cleaning twig made from a twig of a tree known as araak. He has dyed his beard with henna. (Source: SPA)

Video: Saudi Man Playing on the Hood of Speeding Car

This video of a Saudi man playing with his phone on a car hood as the driver cruises in Riyadh has gone viral since it was uploaded to YouTube few days ago. The uploader of the video wrote that the car was moving at a speed of 90km/h on Makkah road, one of the main highways in the Saudi capital, while the man who has covered his face with a red checkered shumagh can be seen on top of a Ford Crown Victoria vehicle sitting on the hood and later lying on the windshield and shaking his legs in the air.

Chart: Saudi Tops the World in Oversharing

Internet users in Saudi Arabia are very comfortable sharing information online, new research reveals. This chart comes from the “2013 Internet Trends” presentation given by Mary Meeker of venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers during the D11 conference in New York this week, and it shows that Saudis share more than double the world average.

Photos: (Don’t) Hit Her

A group of young Saudis are taking part in a new social media campaign to condemn violence against women. In the campaign, young men and woman pose in front of the camera carrying a placard with their own words. The campaign slogan, “Hit Her,” is a clever message calling on men to dare hit women and face the consequences of that action.

The campaign was launched last week and is sponsored by Libra Productions, a sound studio and music management agency based in Jeddah. They have been posting photos and awareness messages on their Twitter account using the hashtag #اضربها. The company also partnered with a law firm to provide consultations for those who need it.

The National Family Safety Program (NFSP) said that three out of 10 women in Saudi Arabia are subjected to domestic violence. Maha al-Muneef, head of NFSP, said during a recent meeting of experts on the subject that media has a crucial role in raising awareness and that it is “one of the bases of dealing with domestic violence in society.”

In order to raise awareness, several campaigns have been launched recently to combat violence against women. Last month, King Khaled Foundation started a “No More Abuse” campaign that has been widely covered by international media as the first of its kind in the country. Few weeks later a group of activists and writers began a local White Ribbon campaign that has faced a backlash by ultraconservative clerics.

Columnist Samar Fatany wrote earlier this month that violence against women is on the rise in Saudi Arabia despite recent efforts to put a stop to this dangerous phenomenon. “Unfortunately, there are no specific criminal laws addressing violence against women and children,” she said. “Domestic violence cases can be the subject of a police investigation; however, they are not treated as serious criminal cases and they are not prosecuted in court.”