Laughing in Public Illegal in Gaza

(Gaza Strip) Out of fear of being tagged as fundamentalist, the Hamas government doesn't acknowledge the existence of the virtue and vice security force but the citizens know it exists.

A Palestinian female journalist complained over the weekend that Hamas policemen attempted to arrest her under the pretext that she came to a Gaza beach dressed immodestly and was seen laughing in public.

The journalist, Asma al-Ghul, said that the policemen instead confiscated her passport. Since the incident, she added, she has been afraid to leave her home, especially after receiving death threats from anonymous callers.

"They accused me of laughing loudly while swimming with my friend and failing to wear a hijab," Ghul told a human rights organization in the Gaza Strip. "They also wanted to know the identity of the people who were with me at the beach and whether they were relatives of mine."

In a phone interview with the Dubai-based Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya news Web site, the journalist said that the policemen who stopped her belonged to the Hamas government's Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice security force.

Reportedly in addition to banning laughing while swimming, the Hamas security force has also banned men from swimming topless. A Hamas spokesman said the security force operates "to prevent men from harassing women."

Most interesting to me in this report is that Hamas wants to hide the fact that Gaza is governed by radicals. Imagine that, extremists in government pretending to be rational.