A school in Saudi Arabia has been fined more than $25,000, with authorities claiming the rainbows on its building were “emblems of homosexuality,” according to a Twitter account associated with the agency that enforces the country’s religious law. The tweet, from the Saudi Society Channel, also showed that the Talee al-Noor International School has been repainted. The Saudi Society Channel is one of the Twitter accounts associated with the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, the agency that enforces Islamic law in the country.

Homosexuality and trans people are routinely punished by flogging in Saudi Arabia, and the country’s authorities are among the most aggressive in the region in targeting LGBT people online and on mobile hookup apps. In July of 2014, a 24-year-old man was sentenced to 450 lashes and three years in prison for soliciting sex with other men on Twitter, according to a US State Department human rights report, & 35 men alleged to be gay were arrested this April in a raid. Read More