A video of women being attacked by men in Saudi Arabia, including several dressed in police uniform, went viral on social media on Wednesday.
The incident was said to have taken place in a girls' orphanage in the Khamis Mushait governorate in the Asir region of the kingdom.
Prince Turki bin Talal bin Abdulaziz, governor of Asir, set up a committee to investigate the incident and refer the case to the relevant authority, the Saudi Press agency reported.
The governate of the Asir region released a statement condemning the incident, saying it was a violation of the criminal procedures system's Articles 2, 12, 36, 41, 43, 53 and 54, and that it is ready to legally represent whoever was affected by this arrest and to request compensation before the court.
The footage appears to show a number of masked people and security men entering the orphanage.
The hashtag "Khamis Mushait orphans" went viral on Twitter within hours, quickly becoming the most popular tag in Saudi Arabia.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Start-up hopes to end Japan's love affair with cash
Across most of Asia, people pay for taxi rides, restaurant meals and merchandise with smartphone-readable barcodes — except in Japan, where cash still rules. Now, as the country’s biggest web companies race to dominate the payments market, one Tokyo-based startup says it has a fighting chance to win with its QR app.
Origami had a head start when it introduced a QR-code payment service in late 2015 and has since signed up fast-food chain KFC, Tokyo’s largest cab company Nihon Kotsu and convenience store operator Lawson. The company raised $66 million in September to expand nationwide and plans to more than double its staff of about 100 employees, says founder Yoshiki Yasui.
Origami is betting that stores, which until now relied on direct mail and email newsletters, will pay for the ability to reach customers on their smartphones. For example, a hair salon using Origami’s payment app would be able to send a message to past customers with a coupon for their next haircut.
Quick Response codes, the dotted squares that can be read by smartphone cameras, were invented in the 1990s by a unit of Toyota Motor to track automotive parts. But when the Japanese pioneered digital payments almost two decades ago with contactless cards for train fares, they chose the so-called near-field communications technology. The high cost of rolling out NFC payments, convenient ATMs and a culture where lost wallets are often returned have all been cited as reasons why cash remains king in the archipelago. In China, however, QR codes dominate.
Cashless payments, which includes credit cards, accounted for just 20 per cent of total consumer spending in Japan during 2016, compared with 60 per cent in China and 89 per cent in South Korea, according to a report by the Bank of Japan.
