Seedy hotels in Sana’a lure guests with pornography

Remarkably cheap hotels have suddenly been appearing in Sana’a. These hotels are attracting a great turnout among Yemenis by providing television channels showing pornography. Despite any lack of service offered by these hotels, patrons are taking pleasure in renting squalid, soiled rooms and viewing X-rated films.

Operating everyday of the week, these hotels welcome crowds of mostly young, budding men carrying qat bags, ready to watch skin flicks for hours on end. Guests are usually checked into their rooms between the hours of 4:00 am and 6:00 pm on account of the awaited programs being aired at that time. “The hotels providing these channels are located far from the center of the city,” said Ahmed al-Borihi, Supervisor of BC Sana’a Hotel located on Taiz Street. He attributed the reason for the increase of such hotels to the pursuit of greed and wealth. Al-Borihi stated that most of hotels owners give money as a bribe to local authorities, enabling them to turn a blind eye on the hotels’ affairs. “There is no fear and faith of Allah in those people. They just care about money and nothing else,” he added.

The majority of these hotels’ frequenters are among the low-income class, working each day only to spend their money in search for a hotel equip with several porn channels to fulfill their perpetual hankerings.

Four to five pornographic channels are available for the client to pull in and out of at his will. The absence of authoritative observation of the hotels has enabled the trend to climax, increasingly coming to a head.

“I was working in Taiz, and when I came to Sana’a to complete some work, I visited these hotels. I chose the cleanest one that had good porn channels,” said a man who declined to give his name.

He said he became aware of this service by word of mouth from his friend who used to frequent these hotels. First he would buy qat and then head to the hotel. “I did that to avoid running after girls in the streets,” he sheepishly admitted.

These hotels rooms have been turned into what Yemenis might call a state-of-the-art movie theater, dedicated to the needs of all men. The cost of one room does not YR1,500 per day. Most attendees are from different age groups, including juvenile students. The owners of the hotels resorted to the use of pornographic channels to attract customers after the hotels suffered from a lack of business.

“There are contributing factors to the popularity of these cheap hotels which broadcast pornography channels. Hotel owners reinvent their work and in hand, attract many young people,” said Abdul-Gabar Radman, Professor of Sociology at Sana’a University. Radman said that because many young people are not get married yet, there is a large vacuum penetrating their lives. Due to this, they resort to spending their time looking for cheap things to do.

The Yemen Observer went to some Sana’a streets, such as Taiz Street in the center of the city, with a large proportion of hotels to investigate claims that they were broadcasting porn channels.

The owners of these hotels denied such claims and considered it as a fierce onslaught from envious people who have failed with their own businesses. Some of them admitted that there are hotels far away from the center of city showing such channels to its clients.

“This is the result of owners lacking religion and also the weakness of religion among young people, leading to corruption, moral degradation and debasement,” Radman said. The opening of satellite channels for young people in a traditional society stimulates his instinct and leads to things which clash with decency, he added. “The absence of the role of a religious community and the lack of educated preachers who are able to give advice to the young men led to the spread of this phenomenon.”

Criminal investigation and a number of arrests by the Moral Department of some hotel owners has been carried out within the past few years. The Yemen Observer tried several times to contact a responsible figure there, but no one was available.

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