Saudi Arabia's War on Valentine's Day: Red Roses Were Contraband

For decades, Valentine's Day was effectively outlawed in Saudi Arabia — not by a single act of parliament, but through the sweeping authority of the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (CPVPV), known colloquially as the 'religious police' or mutawa. Rooted in Saudi Arabia's strict Wahhabi interpretation of Islam, the CPVPV viewed Valentine's Day as a Western Christian import that promoted immoral mixing between unrelated men and women. Each year in the days before February 14, religious police officers would descend on florists and gift shops across cities like Riyadh and Jeddah, handing out printed decrees ordering the removal of all red items — roses, ribbons, gift boxes, and teddy bears. Shop owners who refused risked having their stores raided and shuttered. A thriving black market emerged: florists smuggled red roses at up to six times their normal price, delivering bouquets in the dead of night to avoid detection. One Riyadh resident recalled that even wearing red clothing around Valentine's Day could attract the religious police's attention. The turning point came on April 11, 2016, when a Saudi Cabinet royal decree — part of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's Vision 2030 modernization reforms — stripped the CPVPV of its powers to pursue, arrest, detain, or interrogate anyone. By 2018, the former head of the religious police publicly declared that celebrating love was not against Islamic teachings, and Valentine's Day celebrations became truly open. Flower prices plummeted, restaurants hosted romantic dinners, and Saudi newspapers published Valentine's Day dining guides — a transformation that would have been unimaginable just a few years earlier.