“Emo” refers to a punk-influenced music sub-culture known for wearing a great deal of black (actually pretty easy for women in Saudi Arabia), heavy eye makeup, and generally appearing rather sad (though a little more dressed-down and less monochromatic than Goths). More extensive background than you probably need can be found here.
Now, everyone knows there’s nothing to be sad, jaded, or cynical about when you’re a young woman in Saudi Arabia! And when “government knows best” meets “Allah knows best,” authorities are particularly inclined to mind other people’s business, and this sort of thing tends to happen.
“Saudi ’emo’ girls busted by religious cops: report,” from Agence France-Presse, May 23 (thanks to Anonamustafa):
Saudi Arabia’s religious police have arrested 10 “emo” women for allegedly causing a disturbance in a coffee shop, Al-Yaum newspaper reported on Saturday.
The coffee shop owner in the eastern city of Dammam called the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice to complain after the young women, dressed and made up in the “emo” fashion, apparently began disturbing other clients.
The religious police then called their parents to come and collect the women, and to sign pledges that the girls would not repeat their ostensibly offensive un-Islamic behaviour and dress.
According to recent reports, growing numbers of urban young Saudi women are latching on to the emo fashion popular from Japan to Europe and the Americas.
The trend is characterised by wearing skinny black jeans, tennis shoes, colourful T-shirts bearing the names of emo bands, heavy make up and sharply chopped and sometimes radically coloured hair-dos.
While Saudi women normally must appear in public shrouded by all-black abayas and headscarves, some daringly open their abayas in places such as malls and coffee shops to reveal more trendy outfits underneath.