Saudi Police Arrest Young Woman Who Caused National Uproar Over Her Miniskirt on Snapchat

Police in Saudi Arabia have arrested a young woman who wore a miniskirt in public and who had posted the video online, sparking an outcry from people who say she flagrantly violated the kingdom's conservative Islamic dress code.

Saudi Arabia's state-run TV reported Tuesday that police in the capital, Riyadh, arrested the woman for wearing "immodest clothes" and referred her case to the country's public prosecutor.

Saudi Arabia has strict dress codes for men and women. Women must wear loose, long robes and most also cover their face.

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The young Saudi woman drew attention over the weekend when she shared on Snapchat a video of herself walking around an empty historic fort in Ushaiager, a village north of the capital, Riyadh, in the desert region of Najd, where many of Saudi Arabia's most conservative tribes and families are from.

Competing Twitter hashtags emerged, with one demanding the woman's arrest and another asserting that freedom of dress should not be a crime.

Social media is wildly popular in Saudi Arabia as a space to vent frustrations and gauge public opinion.

With more than half of the population of Saudi Arabia under 25-years-old, the country's 30-year-old heir to the throne, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, has pushed for greater openings for entertainment in part to appease the country's youth, but strict gender segregation rules and other restrictions on women's movements remain in place.