Children burn family tent after watching TV series

Two Saudi children narrowly escaped death after setting their family tent on fire to recreate an act they saw in a local TV series that has already triggered controversy in the region, a local newspaper reported on Friday.

The two brothers aged seven and nine years were inside the tent adjoining their house in the central town of Majmaa when it was engulfed in fire they caused.

They pushed their way out through a small opening in the tent before it was destroyed by the fire, Kabar daily said.

“The two brothers narrowly escaped death,” it quoted their father as saying. “They told us they burned the tent because they wanted to do what the actress did in the Tash episode when she set a wedding tent on fire.”

Tash, a Saudi sitcom aired during Ramadan for the past 17 years, has drawn strong criticism from local Muslim scholars in the past two weeks over some subjects it handles, including Christianity and polygamy in Islam.

Last week, a Kuwait lawyer said he is considering suing the producers of the series and MBC television for showing an episode in which a woman sets a wedding tent on fire, killing many people.

The lawyer is defending a divorced Kuwaiti woman who has been indicted of torching a wedding tent in the emirate early this month, killing over 40 people. Police have said she burned the tent to prevent the marriage of her former husband.

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