MADINAH — The Health Affairs responded on Tuesday to complaints by angry social media users about a selfie posted by a teenage boy with his dead grandfather with the caption “Bye bye grandpa!”, Al-Watan daily reported Wednesady. Madinah Health Affairs Media Director Abdulrazzaq Hafiz said the selfie offended a lot of people and found it disrespectful to the rights of the dead. “The directorate will investigate the incident. We respect the general public's opinion and we agree with it. “The deceased have a right to privacy and the selfie is indeed offensive. We cannot do anything unless we confirm that it was taken in the hospital. Otherwise, the action is not our responsibility,” said Hafiz. He added if the selfie was indeed taken in the hospital, the directorate will take it upon itself to track down the boy and question him. “The boy needs to understand the consequences of his action. It was an extremely senseless act on his part,” said Hafiz. Lawyer Saud Al-Harby said what the boy did was a crime under information privacy law. “His action was completely disrespectful to the values of our society. The penalty for such an act can be cruel. He offended a lot of people with that selfie,” said Al-Harby. Sociologist and researcher Hamid Al-Hazmy said the boy is only in his teens and his action was definitely a "foolish" one. “The boy was only seeking attention, which is not an uncommon behavior for his age. Some teenage boys go drifting, play loud music or get into fights,” said Al-Hazmy. “This boy posted a selfie with his deceased grandfather. We must take into account the boy's age in this incident.” He added the selfie has angered a lot of social media users and it has brought back a previous incident of a nurse who posted a picture of him with a patient covered in blood in Uhud Hospital. “The general public are skeptical about what the directorate will do, especially that all it did last time was to say that it would punish the nurse but no one heard any updates,” said Al-Hazmy.
