Red teddy bears in Saudi Valentine's Day black market

With a waist-high, lipstick-red teddy bear poised outside his shop, it was hard for Mohammed to hide his Valentine's Day black market goods inside a mall in the Saudi port city of Jeddah.

On the eve of Valentine's, he was worried that the Saudi religious police, who call the holiday a heretical practice in Islamic society, would confiscate his red, pink and white stuffed bears and other gifts.

This is an annual battle between Saudi romantics and the feared Islamic police, or Muttawa, who earlier in the week sent out their yearly message warning that all things red would be seized the day before Valentine's.

Red cakes, red-dyed chocolates, the ever-popular stuffed bears and even red roses were strictly off-limits.

But shops and clients still schemed to make the best of the day, with telephone orders being made for bouquets and sweets for delivery from stock hidden in back rooms.

Couples looking for a romantic night out tried to skirt the kingdom's conservative Islamic laws, which ban unrelated men and women from socialising, and hunted for restaurants shielded from the watchful gaze of the Muttawa.

Or, said a single woman in her 20s, romantic dinners with the opposite sex were planned for the 13th or 15th.

"Two years ago we lost 6,000 roses," said Jeddah flower shop attendant Maher, counting the loss in several thousand dollars from the confiscations carried out by the Muttawa.

Red flowers and gifts were abundant in his shop last Friday but he said that early yesterday he would move the goods out of sight, and pray that the Muttawa would not come by.

"It's worth the risk, because it is good business," he said, noting that roses had doubled in price to 10 riyals ($2.70) a stem this week, and could go higher by today.

Asked what would happen if he was caught dealing in red roses under the counter, another florist crossed his wrists in the universal sign of being handcuffed.

Jeddah residents say it's not too hard to get away with celebrating Valentine's Day, because the religious police had been put on a tight leash in the relatively liberal city.

But elsewhere in Saudi Arabia, it's a big challenge.

In the eastern city of Dammam, nothing red was in sight in any flower shops last Thursday.

In Riyadh, lovers were determined to make the best of it.

"What we usually do is arrange gifts by phone from before. They just send the flowers on the date," said the woman, who asked not to be identified. Romantic dinners are a challenge on February 14.

Last year, she said, one top-end French restaurant in Riyadh that is popular with unmarried couples because it normally manages to keep the religious police at bay, had to allow them in for inspection on Valentine's Day.

"For the couples who are afraid, they celebrate one day before or one day after," she said.

Mohammed, who had the metre-high teddy bear on display outside his shop, said he also had a system worked out.

"I am afraid of being arrested, and I want to lock the door before they come," he said, explaining that if the Muttawa invaded he would be tipped off by the mall watchmen and pretend to be closed.