A man arrested on Sunday faces up to five years in prison for sharing a meal with a female co-worker in Saudi Arabia, after an "offensive" 30-second video showed their interaction, reports said.
The man, described as an Egyptian national, could face charges of sexual harassment in the workplace and up to five years in prison, AlJazeera.com reported, citing the U.S.-funded Al Hurra TV.
The man, an Egyptian hotel worker, had invited his viewers on social media to "join us" for breakfast, while his female colleague sits next to him, The Guardian reported. She was covered from head to toe in black Islamic niqab.
In one part of the video, the veiled woman appears to feed the man, which sparked the most outrage, the report said.
“The labour ministry arrested an expatriate in Jeddah after he appeared in an offensive video,” the ministry said.
Saudi Arabia enforces strict segregation between men and women, whereby the two genders, if not closely related, must sit separately from each other in workplaces and many restaurants, according to The Guardian.
The ministry also said the hotel owner had been summoned for failing to adhere to government regulations that "stipulate a gender-segregated workplace," The Guardian reported.
Women are prohibited from many activities without being accompanied by a male guardian who is often a male family member, the report said.
It was not immediately clear if the woman in the video was arrested.
The man's arrest comes after the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's bid to modernize the Gulf kindgom, Time Magazine reported.
In June, Saudi Arabia lifted a ban on women driving, along with other reform efforts allowing women to attend sporting events.
But some conservative critics have said the reforms are a "superficial attempt to curry favor with the West," Time reported.
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