Abdulahaleem Al-Barrak
Makkah
I WOULD first like to acknowledge Prince Khaled Al-Faisal, Emir of Makkah and advisor to Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, who expedited the arrest of the people who attacked a group of police officers. This came after a woman recorded the entire scene. I would also like to acknowledge the Emir of Asir Prince Faisal Bin Khaled who stopped an investigation into a citizen who filmed a health and safety violation in the form of exposed electricity power cables going through a building.
There are many differences between the two situations. The woman who recorded the attack on police officers received compliments, while the man who recorded the safety violations was investigated. One difference is that the camera that recorded the police officers being assaulted was an iPhone. The recording helped save the police officers and brought the attackers to justice. On the other hand, the camera that recorded the electricity cables going through the window was a Galaxy. This led to the person who did the filming being investigated. The Emir of Asir, however, stopped the investigation. The woman, on the other hand, was not investigated but honored.
Another difference is that members of the public sympathized with the woman, as it was International Women’s Day, but attacked the man because of his gender. This could be because Makkah and Asir are different even though they are not that far apart.
Another reason for the difference between these two situations is that people say the man was not recording on his own property but on someone else’s while the woman was recording from her home. This reminds me of a British drama in which an accused person said he did not want journalists to take photos of him while they claimed that it was their right as long as they were on public property, not on private property.
We truly need experts on religion, law and filming to analyze the two situations. Though they seem to be similar, the reaction to them has been different. A legal expert needs to tell us when it is legal for us to film, so that people can expose corruption without getting into trouble. An expert on religion needs to tell us if it is permissible to film when the goal is to expose corruption, as the need is greater than the prohibition.
An expert on filming could advise us on how different cultures and countries look at privacy. Until this information is available, we do not know whether we should or should not film. We still do not know whether it is legal or illegal.
