A short video clip is at the centre of a vigorous online debate and outrage in Saudi Arabia. A model named Khulood posted a Snapchat video of herself touring a historic fort in Ushayqir village, in the desert region of Najd, dressed in a short skirt and a crop top.

The outcome: she has been arrested, according to Saudi state television.

The video was widely shared on Twitter and Instagram, with commentators calling for her arrest because she apparently broke the country’s dress code. Saudi Arabia is known to have some of the most restrictive laws on women in the world, where women must only wear loose-fitting, full-length robes known as abayas in public, as well as a headscarf.

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One person tweeted: “People who don’t respect the kingdom’s rules, don’t deserve to live in it,” The Evening Standard reported. Another said: “What she did doesn’t fall under ‘personal freedom’. It’s clear that she wanted to provoke people and go against the country’s social rules and norms. She must be punished for this.”

But there is also growing support for Khulood. On Twitter, one Fatima al-Issa viewed the outrage as a sign of hypocrisy, and she posted (in Arabic): “If she was a foreigner, they would sing about the beauty of her waist and the enchantment of her eyes... But because she is Saudi they are calling for her arrest.” Writer and philosopher Wael al-Gassim told BBC he was “shocked to see those angry, scary tweets”. He added: “I thought she had bombed or killed somebody. The story turned out to be about her skirt, which they did not like.”