BEIRUT: It was the kind of cat video no one would want to see.
A 26-year-old Saudi man was arrested Thursday after officials said he had posted a Snapchat video in which he killed at least three cats with what appeared to be a rifle, sometimes from a moving car.
In the video, which was taken in a residential neighbourhood in the port city of Jeddah and which prompted a social media uproar, the man could be heard saying that he was shooting the cats because they had repeatedly left a mess on his four cars.
“For those who tell me it’s haram” – forbidden – “to kill cats: I have to wash four cars every week,” he says in the video, which users captured and posted to YouTube because Snapchat videos normally disappear after 24 hours.
The man recorded himself with a digitally altered image – a cat’s ears and nose were superimposed on his face, using one of Snapchat’s filters – and modified his voice, which was made to sound like that of a high-pitched robot.
The video prompted immediate disgust and revulsion; some users of Snapchat called on Snap, its parent company, to investigate. (Snapchat’s terms of use ban “pornography, graphic violence, threats, hate speech or incitements to violence.”)
The outcry prompted the Saudi Ministry of Environment, Water and Agriculture to issue a statement on Wednesday deploring the attacks.
“The ministry confirms that this horrendous act is against the teachings of Islam that call for animal welfare, and it is also against the laws of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council,” it said.
The crime also moved the emir of Jeddah, who urged authorities to investigate.
Saudi Arabia is governed according to a strict interpretation of Islamic law, which is good for cats, because clerics have historically seen them as cleaner than other household animals, like dogs.
Stories of the Prophet Muhammad say that he was kind to cats, and many clerics say that water is clean enough for ablutions even if a cat has drunk from it.
On Thursday, the government of the Mecca region, which includes Jeddah, said that “the man who shot the cats has been arrested in Jeddah, and the investigation is ongoing and the laws will be implemented.”
The man was arrested on Thursday and taken in for questioning, but by nightfall he had been released on bail, according to local news reports.
Under animal welfare guidelines that the Saudi government promulgated in 2013, animal abuse is punishable by a fine of up to 50,000 riyals (about US$13,000) for a first offense, going up to 400,000 riyals (about US$106,000) for a repeat offense.
According to the local news reports, the man’s family was offered police protection after receiving threats from outraged neighbours, some of whom defaced the family’s cars. -- NYT