Fatwa sends 'demonic' Pokemons into hiding
DubaiI, United Arab Emirates - Marwa Khaled Ismail has spent months and months worth of pocket money collecting Pokemon cards.
The eight-year-old is obsessed with trying to beat her siblings and classmates at the Pokemon video game.
But her father Khaled has long had his differences with Pokemon - the games dominated the lives of Marwa and her three siblings, diverted them from their prayers and affected their studies.
Now Saudi Arabia's highest religious authority has backed parents up, declaring a fatwa against the cute little characters Japan's Nintendo has made into a multibillion dollar enterprise that is enormously popular around the world.
The fatwa added Pokemon video games and cards have symbols that include "the Star of David, which everyone knows is connected to international Zionism and is Israel's national emblem, as well as being the first symbol of the Freemasons."
"A number of parents have been involved in the game and spare no expense to support their children and use the game to reward or punish them," said the edict.
Khaled Ismail, an Egyptian living and working in Saudi Arabia, said in a telephone interview that he had to set aside 500 rials (about R1064) every month to buy Pokemon merchandise for his four children.
"You can't always say no to your children," he said.
Because of severe punishments for violators, which would include lashings, revoking of a trade licence, stiff fines and deportation, the edict is expected to be strictly followed.
"I'm trying to find Ash and I haven't yet," lamented Marwa, referring to one of the most popular, and rare, cards of the game.
Many Saudi shops and restaurants had used Pokemon merchandise to market their products, ranging from meals for children to toys.
Despite being one of the Middle-East's most conservative countries, where Western influences are frowned upon, the oil-rich kingdom is one of the largest markets in the region, with countless Western fast food chains, international designer clothes shops and foreign music.
In Tokyo on Monday, a Nintendo spokesperson denied that religious symbols are depicted on Pokemon items and said Nintendo did not design them with religious symbols in mind.
Pokemon cards typically have a brightly coloured picture of a character along with geometric symbols corresponding to the fanciful powers it possesses.
While the company is investigating the claims that have led to the ban, the spokesperson, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Nintendo's lack of licensed sales outlets or representatives in Saudi Arabia made it difficult to get information.
He speculated that companies not affiliated with Nintendo are buying the goods in other countries and selling them in Saudi Arabia.
The Pokemon phenomenon originated in Japan three years ago as a Nintendo video game.
It quickly expanded into cartoons, comic books and trading cards, becoming a multibillion dollar enterprise that is enormously popular around the world.
The game has been criticised in several countries, with a Christian church in Mexico calling it "demonic", and organisations in Slovakia saying television shows based on the game hurt children.
Many schools in the United States have banned the trading cards because they are distracting youngsters from their studies.
But until the Saudi ban, the Pokemon phenomenon had not attracted much notice in the Mideast.
On Monday, Sheik Abdel Basset Ahmed of Egypt's House of Fatwa, in charge of issuing religious edicts, said he'd never heard of Pokemon before.
But the cleric said anything that distracts people from praying and remembering God is "haram", or religiously forbidden. - Sapa-AP
Published on the Web by IOL on 2001-03-26 19:45:02
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