DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) – The party is going loud: classical music sounded, families cheered, crowds of revelers danced. Then the police broke in. The agents expelled the guests, imposed heavy fines and even locked up the boyfriend and the tuxedo singers.
In recent weeks, such unfortunate endings in long-awaited marriages have a not unusual history in the Arab world, as the resurgence of coronavirus cases triggers deceptive police action.
However, in a region where marriage is the cornerstone of society, the door to independence and the only culturally appropriate context for a sex life, couples are advancing, despite the fatal risks. From the Palestinian territories to the United Arab Emirates, officials characterize a build-up of virus cases to large-scale classical marriages that circumvent public fitness measures.
In Jenin, northern West Bank, Mustafa Khatib and six members of his organization spent two nights in prison for attending a busy wedding this month. Police fined the organization $11,000.
“It’s fair, ” Khatib. La will never avoid getting married and will never avoid throwing parties. “
Mohammed Abu al-Naji, another singer, was only released after committing to avoid making a song until the end of the pandemic.
“There were about 500 people at the party, without any protection,” al-Naji recalls. “I wasn’t satisfied to be at a wedding like this, but I had to do it” to make it to the end of the month,” he said.
The Palestinian government has ended dozens of ceremonies, police spokesman Loaie Irzekat said. However, the wave of fines, arrests and infections has not prevented our partners from deciding to marry, surrounded by a lot of friends.
“You plan to have a small wedding, but then all your relatives and friends show up,” said Qasim Najjar, whose wedding party last weekend in the village of Deir Sharaf in the northern West Bank was scattered across the police. “It’s our custom. “
For Arab families, lax and luxurious marriages mark social status. For newlyweds, the tradition of accepting envelopes full of cash helps them settle in. For Palestinians, the ritual can be even deeper.
“It’s an existential thing,” said Randa Serhan, a political sociologist at the American University of Beirut, referring to Palestinians living under the Israeli profession or in exile. “If the Palestinians prevent them from getting married and procreated, they will cease to exist. They have a nation, but they have a family. “
The celebrations of life have potentially fatal consequences. The head of the Palestinian Ministry of Health, Ali Abed Rabu, has linked more than 80% of new coronavirus infections to giant meetings at weddings and funerals. Wedding halls in internal conservative cities like Hebron have vectors of contagion. Coronavirus cases are now reaching new heights. The Palestinian Authority reported more than 34,500 cases in the West Bank and 270 deaths.
In Israel, which is dealing with one of the most consistent coronavirus outbreaks in the world, the government identifies giant marriages in Arab cities as one of the main reasons for the spread of the virus. , Arab communities are among the most affected by the virus.
Arab-Israeli lawmaker Ahmad Tibi told The Associated Press that the infection rate in Arab regions had increased from about 3% to 30% during the summer wedding season. Israeli citizens, disillusioned after the failure of an initial closure, are beginning to “ignore instructions,” he added.
When Egyptian wedding halls closed this spring due to an increase in infections, the rich moved their extravagant celebrations to personal villas. Working-class Egyptians took their noisy parties to the streets of the village, prompting local police to interrupt the festivities. Although Egyptian officials still warn of a imaginable “second wave,” the government announced last week that weddings could resume outdoors and in qualified hotels.
In the United Arab Emirates, infection rates peaked at a maximum of four months, which led a senior fitness officer to rebuke the public for “compassion and neglect. “Farida al-Hosani, spokesman for the Ministry of Health, said nearly 90% of new cases came here from crowds at weddings, funerals and other events.
The Emirati government has intensified its crackdown on illegal attacks. Last weekend, the government ordered the arrest of eight other people across the country who had organized massive parties without masks. They remain in detention and face criminal convictions of up to six months. and minimum fines of $27,226 each. In Abu Dhabi’s capital, a boyfriend, father and stepfather are being prosecuted after police broke up their marriage in tents and fined visitors $2700.
The sleepiest northernmost emirate of Ras al-Khaimah has never been to Dubai, the glittering city-state known for its champagne-inflated nightclubs. However, the coronavirus has turned the dusty city into a free shelter. He also filled the emirate’s hotels for drinking and dancing. While Dubai now strictly regulates forbidden banquets and weddings, Ras al-Khaimah has reopened wedding halls and eased restrictions.
Many organizers of occasions in Dubai who have noticed that their source of income disappeared are reaching the little-known emirate.
“Planners leave, vendors and suppliers leave, musicians leave,” said Stefanie Heller, Dubai-based wedding planner at Jam Events.
At Jawaher’s wedding corridor in Ras al-Khaimah, workers control visitor temperatures, serve drinks in plastic cups and inspire social distance at tables. Twice a week, the room is filled with about 250 revelers. “They look like weddings in general, ” he said. Lovely Bartolata, employee. Security guards check to prevent visitors from dancing.
It is not known how many marriages in Ras al-Khaimah have been linked to COVID-19 because the United Arab Emirates does not publish data on disease groups. The emirate’s Department of Economic Development, which enforces antivirus rules, said the emirate is “one of the first destinations in the world qualified as safe. “However, citizens are concerned that meetings are exactly what fitness officials warned them at the beginning of the pandemic.
“These rooms are a problem. This is how the virus spreads,” said Rahmat Allah, director of Tahani Al Khaleej, a wedding company in Ras al-Khaimah.
Some Arab couples challenge cultural culture to stick to fitness tips. When the Palestinian Authority closed this year, Baraa Amarneh and Imad Sharaf, desperate to start living together, tied near the town of Hebron in the southern West Bank, hand-held with latex gloves.
A mask covered Amarneh’s 25-year-old makeup. Only a few close relatives came. While her friends now face a criminal sentence for holding parties after the lockout, she says she would do the same again.
“Without all the neighbors and friends, you have what a wedding is,” he says, “two people. “
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Daraghmeh reported from Ramallah, Cisjordania. La Associated Press Samy Magdy in Cairo contributed to this report.