Saudi Arabia is moving to expand access to alcohol, allowing non-Muslims with special residency status to purchase alcoholic beverages from a store in Riyadh that was previously reserved for foreign diplomats, according to the US outlet Semafor.
In recent days, holders of the Premium Residency have been able to buy alcohol from the Diplomatic Quarter outlet. The government has issued no announcement, and people who visited the store said they learned about the change verbally.
This step marks the latest measure taken by the Saudi government to formalise the sale and consumption of alcohol, as part of the Kingdom’s efforts to make tourism a central pillar in diversifying its economy.
Saudi Arabia aims to attract 150 million tourists annually by 2030 and is investing heavily in developing hotels and entertainment zones. However, it still suffers from limited tourism to a large extent, which makes it less appealing to some tourists compared to neighbouring Gulf states.
The liquor store in Riyadh opened last year and was exclusively dedicated to foreign diplomats. The facility provided a centralised hub for alcohol supplies in the Kingdom, which had previously arrived through diplomatic shipments.
Riyadh launched the Premium Residency programme in 2019 as a means of attracting high-income foreign workers and investors. The programme has since expanded its eligibility requirements and is now available to expatriates who earn more than 80,000 riyals (21,000 dollars) per month or who work in specific professions.
The outlet stated that “the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is steadily moving towards expanding access to alcohol, striking a balance between its clear ambition to abandon its historically rigid conservative image and the need to preserve deeply rooted Islamic prohibitions on alcohol, as well as its role as custodian of the two holiest religious sites”.
It added, “For decades, expatriates without connections to diplomats willing to part with some of their stock have brewed beer, wine, and spirits in their homes. Enforcement of the laws was lax, so long as this home brewing did not spill into public trade or rowdy parties. Alcoholic beverages have been served in the homes of prominent Saudi families, officials, and bankers, according to previous reporting by The New York Times”.
Rumours of broader easing of alcohol restrictions have circulated over the past five years. Many hotels and restaurants have already been fitted with bars serving non-alcoholic drinks and non-alcoholic beer for the time being.
The outlet concluded by saying that “by expanding purchasing rights to a narrow group of non-Muslim expatriates, the government can present itself as more welcoming to the foreign talent it increasingly needs for economic transformation, while keeping restrictions on sales in place at the same time”.
⚡️The leader of Afghanistan lashes out at the West:
“Your Western laws are nothing but your psychological desires and the product of your intoxication.
As for our laws, their source is the Quran, the Prophetic Hadith, and Islamic jurisprudence. So what is the source of your laws?
What is the value of your corrupt opinion, you corrupt man?
You oppress humanity and impose upon it your ideologies and your opinions.
And to impose your ideologies, you resort to violence and brutality, not logic.
Is your law a just law?
No, because you are slaves to your lusts and your psychological desires.
You are confused and inconsistent: one day you do one thing, and the next day you do the complete opposite.
On one hand, you raise slogans of human rights, social justice, and justice,
and on the other hand, you bomb the defenseless and kill the innocent, exactly as you are doing right now in Palestine.
For what sin are you killing them, O tyrants, O cruel ones?
What crime have they committed, you thugs?
On what basis, under what law, do you kill oppressed women and children? Where is the justice and fairness?
You claim that human rights and women’s rights have been violated in Afghanistan
yet in Palestine everything is supposedly fine and no violation has occurred at all!!!”
– Source Afghan state media