Saudi Arabia's religious police have arrested more than 140 people for celebrating Valentine's Day.

The Organisation for Promoting Virtue and Discouraging Evil says officers have punished those caught so far, and that its campaign of arrests is continuing.

In a six-page statement, the religious police said they were saving women from "deceiving men", who used the day to give the fake impression that they loved a woman while pretending to be a "harmless lamb".

The religious authorities say Muslims who take part in Valentine's Day are in fact weak, lacking imagination, and far removed from the "sublime and virtuous" objectives of their religion.

The organisation has also confiscated all red roses from shops.

BBC