Saudi men arrested for flirting

MECCA, Saudi Arabia, Feb. 23 (UPI) -- Police in Saudi Arabia say they arrested 57 young men in Mecca for flirting with girls and playing loud music and dancing to attract the girls' attention.

The men were arrested this week at shopping centers in Mecca on the orders of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, which enforces Saudi Arabia's conservative brand of Islam, Wahhabism, the BBC reported.

Earlier in the month, Saudi authorities enforced a ban on the sale of red roses used to mark Valentine's Day, which is viewed in Saudi Arabia as a "pagan Christian holiday" which encourages relations between the sexes outside of marriage, the BBC reported.