Tracing the article back through the Angry Arab to the Guardian article which inspired it, it becomes apparent that the arrests had nothing to do with water pistols or water fights. The arrests took place after the event and arose from perceived transgressions of Islamic laws concerning public decency in a gathering with male and female participants.
I haven’t ‘followed’ the Angry Arab website but have read several A-A articles linked from elsewhere. On the few occasions I’ve skimmed the site after reading a linked article I never bothered bookmarking it due to the mixed messages I found there. I prefer sites with more ‘ideological purity’ than I found at A-A.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Aug 6 2011 3:34 utc | 3

I follow AngryArab and he uses to criticize the hypocrisy of western democracies and media on religious matters when something is reported as very negative or backwards when the religion is Islam and gets ignored or not reported in a negative way when it’s Christian or Jewish. For example he also uses to frequently mock about the ‘throwing shoes is an Arab insult’ meme as it wasn’t in any other culture.
However as a radical secular and feminist leftist he obviously doesn’t support the regimes of Syria, Iran, Libya, or Hizbollah as a religious group rather than an anti-Israeli resistance group, and regularly attacks them for their backwardness and repression. You can disagree with a single report taken out of context or with his whole ideology but in that he is clearly quite consistent and much more than any mainstream reporter or blogger. He mock any western country if a similar event was repressed for pious reasons, just send him a mail so he can notice the event.

Posted by: ThePaper | Aug 6 2011 7:40 utc | 5

Angry Arab frequently mocks the racist hypocrisy of singling out for criticism Muslims or Arabs for things that also happen in non-Muslim countries. This is one of his strengths. You must not be reading him regularly.

Posted by: Xihuitl | Aug 6 2011 9:19 utc | 7

Just shows that he is as much a hypocrite as those he frequently mocks.

Thanks b, this is exactly what I was struggling to say in English. Great minds think alike and all that!

Posted by: hans | Aug 6 2011 10:36 utc | 9

Accusations of licentious, obscene, depraved, corrupting of morals, creating disorder, either in representation (pictures, text, etc.) or in behavior….have been a mainstay of all the powerful always, as such accusations and control cut to the heart of whatever social organization exists, and how to uphold it, by appealing to conservative elements, who are more inclined to bow to authority (or hope to participate in it) and thus agree to or endorse repressive measures, which then serve the PTB for other matters.
One ex. which I have just been reading about, which may seem a little off topic but is connected…In 1971 a famous case in England took place: the Oz magazine published amongst others a picture of Rupert the Bear (a character for children) with a huge erection. It seems quaint today when ten year olds eat ice cream while secretly watching porn…Anyway the Old Bailey was busy for 6 weeks or so with this matter, very interesting. Clearly the establishment was spooked – what next? At the time the porn industry was run in part by the Police and attacking underground or alternative mags provided cover.
The old colonialists used to be horrified at the unbridled dress, sexual manners, public behavior, etc. of the poor people they exploited and controlled, and clamped down, hard. But now, after the so called sexual revolution and under the ‘freedom ticket’, conservatism in such matters has become a stigma, a mark a people gripped in the dark ages, outdated customs, rabid religion, patriarchy, tribalism, etc. hypocritically condemned by the stooge left- Democrats and their ilk. (Israel as a target is exempt of course.)
Water fights are fun, disruptive, sexy …. all over the world… what next? but in the West they, and other such large gatherings, are not repressed because of ‘sex’ or ‘personal morals’ – the mingling of boys and girls with now transparent clothes – but because some kind of collective forms and it occupies public space, takes it over, shows off, stakes a claim.
As the reasons for the repression are *ostensibly* different, it is perhaps comprehensible that the Angry Arab, if he even knew about events in GB, would not relate the two. His mission is bashing Israel and the ArabWorld, in part on the personal identity-cultural-moral sexual behavior etc. issues.

Posted by: Noirette | Aug 8 2011 14:11 utc | 11