Man arrested for having breakfast with female colleague in Saudi Arabia

Saudi authorities have arrested an Arab man who appeared in video having breakfast with a female work colleague.

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The Ministry of Labor and Social Development said the man was arrested for appearing in an “offensive video” and cited violations of rules including those “regulating women’s placement at work.”

Local news platform SaudiNews50 said Tuesday that the woman was arrested as well. CNN couldn’t confirm her arrest.

Authorities did not reveal their nationalities. The man speaks in an Egyptian dialect in the video and it was not clear if the woman was Saudi.

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“The labor ministry arrested an expatriate in Jeddah after he appeared in an offensive video,” said the ministry’s statement, which was published on Sunday.

Local media identified the man as Egyptian, saying that the video was shot in the lobby of the hotel where both the man and woman work.

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“Come have breakfast with us,” the man, identified in the local media reports by a single name, Bahaa, says during the video. The video also shows the woman feeding him a piece of food.

The video went viral, eliciting a backlash from conservatives in the kingdom, where public space is generally gender-segregated.

Read the full report on CNN here