RIYADH - Saudi Arabia's interior ministry began Wednesday enforcing a months-old ban on the sale of camera handphones, systematically checking that retail outlets are not selling the mobiles, shop owners said.
The trade ministry had already banned the import of mobile phones with cameras but the decision had not been applied because phones were being smuggled into the kingdom by traders from other places, mainly Dubai and Bahrain.
They were then sold in shops at high prices and without a warranty.
Shop owners in Riyadh said the interior ministry had begun searching shops for camera phones which it confiscates if found. The phones are then re-exported and the shop owners subsequently compensated, they said.
The authorities are also clamping down on the popular phones being utilised for personal use, the shop owners said.
Newspapers here recently reported that a number of girls have been expelled from schools and universities for using the phones to photograph their colleagues. The pictures are in some cases distributed over the Internet, the reports said.
Blair blasts Britons over Iraq war