'Illegal' Saudi women's fitness centre closed down

[Al-khiyal]

Unauthorized women's gym shut

JEDDAH, January 20, 2010 -- The Jeddah General Management of Health Affairs closed down a fitness club for women in one of the city’s health centers for violation of rules and for employing unqualified staff who were not under the owner’s sponsorship, said Director of Jeddah Health Affairs Dr. Sami Badawood. Dr. Mahmoud Abdul Jawad, head of medical licenses department, said inspection of health centers will continue and violators will be punished. Last year, some Shoura Council members had asked the General Presidency for Youth Welfare to expedite the process of establishing female-exclusive sports centers. The Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs recently closed down two unlicensed female gyms in Jeddah and one in Dammam. At present women's gyms are allowed only inside hospitals as “health centers” supervised by the Ministry of Health. But these health centers are very expensive which only the affluent can afford. So budget health centers for women have sprung up under the guise of “beauty salons” or “studios.”

[Al-khiyal]

'Illegal' Saudi women's gym shut: media

January 20, 2010 (AFP) -- Health authorities in Jeddah have shut down an "illegal" women's fitness centre attached to a hospital, closing one of the few venues where Saudi women are able to exercise, local media said on Wednesday. Although health officials have repeatedly blamed the high rates of heart disease and diabetes in the kingdom on poor diets and lack of exercise, health authorities said women's fitness centres were not allowed. "Anyone who violates regulations governing the running of health facilities would be punished severely because this involves people's health," Jeddah health official Muhammed Abdul Jawad told the English-language Arab News. The reports did not identify the Jeddah hospital affected, but a photograph in the Saudi Gazette showed an official sealing the club door with an announcement reading "Closed on the order of Jeddah Health Affairs." While gyms for men in the gender-segregated conservative Islamic society are permitted, women's health clubs are forbidden, despite a clear demand shown by a surge in underground facilities in the past two years. But last year a number of stand-alone women's gyms were shut, though some attached to or inside hospital premises continued to function. The reports said the country's municipal and rural affairs ministry had recently closed two other gyms in the Red City of Jeddah and one in Dammam, eastern Saudi Arabia.