RIYADH (Parliament Politics Magazine) – Gulf Arab nations are asking that Netflix remove any material that they perceive to be against Islamic and societal norms.
The six-member Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and Saudi Arabia’s media watchdog issued a statement on Tuesday threatening legal action against the US-based streaming service for airing material that “contradicts” Islam.
The statement made no particular mention of the material, only that the platform was notified to delete that content, including content oriented to children. The Saudi state media did draw attention to films and television programmes with LGBT characters.
Regional authorities will monitor the compliance of the platform with the orders, and in the event that the unlawful content was aired again, the required legal steps would be taken, the statement said, which was also made public.
In a programme discussing the matter, state-run Al Ekhbariya TV in Saudi Arabia aired animated sequences from Jurassic World Camp Cretaceous that looked to show two girls hugging.
A lawyer, in an on-air interview on that channel stated they were extremely bad and painful videos for their children, grandchildren, and the next generation.
In a similar manner, the United Arab Emirates said in a statement released on Tuesday that it would monitor Netflix’s programming in the following days and evaluate its commitment to broadcasting restrictions in the nation.
Because it has characters that are in a same-sex relationship, the animated feature film Lightyear from Walt Disney-Pixar was recently banned from theatres in the UAE and other nations.
Due to a reference to a same-sex relationship, Onward, a Disney and Pixar movie, was banned in various Middle Eastern nations in 2020.
The movie, which makes a casual allusion to a lesbian relationship between two supporting characters, was banned from screening in Oman, Kuwait, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia by authorities.
Saudi Arabia asked that LGBTQ connotations in the 2017 Marvel superhero movie Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness be removed by Disney.
Disney refused, and as a result, the movie was not shown in the kingdom.
As part of a campaign against homosexuality, Saudi authorities reportedly seized toys and clothes in the capital’s stores in this year, June.
