Saudi Twitter breaks after woman 'sexually harasses elderly man'

Reports that a woman in her 30s was arrested in a Saudi hospital after "harassing" an elderly man have gone viral, setting social media alight with immature jokes about the incident.

Makkah Newspaper reported on Saturday that a woman had been detained by hospital security in the port city of Yanbu on allegations of harassing a bedridden patient in his 80s.

"The woman visited the elderly patient in his private room...last month, after she left she was apprehended by security guards on accusations she had harassed the old man," an eyewitness told the publication.

The witness said that the suspect then contacted her relatives who rushed to the scene and assaulted the on-site guards.

"Police intervened to break up the fight and took the people involved to the station, where an investigation was opened into the incident," he added.

The newspaper failed to explain how the suspect had allegedly "harassed" the senior citizen, but that did not stop Saudi social media from filling in the gaps.

An Arabic-language hashtag for the story gained traction on Twitter with hundreds of users tweeting jokes, many in bad taste, about the man being molested by the younger woman.

"So she left all the young men out there and harassed a dry old man. She should have thought about going after a doctor or a nurse," said one Twitter user.

Another user jokingly said that the incident was caused by men being allowed to leave the house without their guardians, referring to recent orders to soften laws on male guardianship for Saudi women.

Translation: "The greybeard's reaction has he left the hospital."

In 2015, one of the biggest shopping centres in Jeddah, recorded an alleged wave of cases of harassment of men by women.

Male shoppers complained about being cat-called and followed by women, with most of the complaints relating to verbal harassment.