Video: Anger after Saudi man 'accosts' random women on London tube

Video: Anger after Saudi man 'accosts' random women on London tube
A video taken by a Saudi man of himself chatting up random women and men and singing loudly on the London Underground has caused anger and embarrassment
2 min read
17 April, 2019
Drunk or just a terrible sense of humour? [Twitter]
A video taken by a Saudi man of himself chatting up random women and men and singing loudly on the London Underground has caused anger and embarrassment after it was widely shared on Saudi social media.

The video starts with the man uttering unintelligible greetings to three women at Earl Court's tube station, before he boardrd a train on the Picadilly Line singing, greeting bewildered commuters and even telling one passenger he sat next to you "I love you" in English.

The unidentified man then starts singing in Saudi Arabic dialect.

It is not clear whether he was intoxicated or acting deliberately silly.

While London commuters are infamous for being averse to conversation with strangers on trains, the anger and embarrassment seems to have been mostly felt by Saudi Twitter.


"He deserves to be punished for harrassment, offending public decency, and insulting his country abroad," tweeted one Saudi man, tagging the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

"It's these kinds of people who tarnish our image outside Saudi Arabia and preventing (Saudi) women from travelling abroad, even though they are more honourable and successful," tweeted a Saudi woman.

"If he is a Saudi citizen he must be held accountable for meeting girls he has no right to meet....this does not befit him as a Saudi citizen who must be a role model for Arabs and Muslims," another Saudi tweeted.

Thousands of both ordinary and wealthy Saudis visit London every year, spending millions of pounds and sometimes even flying their luxury cars to drive around wealthy boroughs of London. 

Tabloid media in the UK often run with stories of the extravagance of such wealthy Saudis.