It’s official: in Saudi Arabia, you can be arrested for dabbing. Sounds like a fun place to live!
Saudi TV host, actor, and singer Abdallah Al Shahani was taken into custody in Taif, Saudi Arabia, after he spontaneously did the now-ubiquitous dance move while onstage at a music festival.
Watch Al Shahani do the illegal dance move up top.
Seems pretty innocuous, right? Well, not according to Saudi authorities, who consider dabbing intrisically connected to drug culture, and the Saudi Interior Ministry’s National Commission for Combating Drugs has banned the public from engaging in it, as per this anti-dabbing government poster:
https://twitter.com/NCNC_sa/status/894152807363870720
Al Shahani apologized for dabbing on Twitter, writing “I apologize to our respected government and to my audience for unintentionally and spontaneously making the dance move at Taif festival. Please accept my apology.”
السلام عليكم .. اقدم أشد اعتذاري لحكومتنا الرشيدة وجمهوري العزيز على الحركة
(العفوية الغير مقصوده ) في مهرجان الطائف
تقبلوا اعتذاري ..— عبدالله الشهراني (@Shaharani1A) August 6, 2017
Let’s all be grateful we (hopefully) live in countries where can dab at any moment without risking governmental wrath, and do a dab in Al Shahani’s honor.