Saudi Arabia's vice police creates 'human rights division'

Saudi Arabia's vice police is planning to set up a human-rights division among its ranks, supposedly in order to improve its image.

The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, the kingdom's religious police, has come under fire over the past few years for their strict and sometimes brutal clamp-downs on what is perceived as un-Islamic behavior, fueling international criticism of Saudi Arabia's human-rights record.

The organization enforces religious rules such as a ban on men and women mixing, Islamic dress code, prayer attendance and the prohibition on the possession and consumption of alcohol.

The Saudi Al-Watan reported that the commission was planning to restructure itself. A spokesman for the commission, 'Abd Al-Muhsin Al-Qafari, said the features of the restructured commission would include restructuring the legal administration and creating new units, among them one that will deal with human rights.

This new unit will begin operating shortly under the direct supervision of the commission's director and it will deal with human rights "in accord with just Islamic principles and international rights treaties."

Wajiha Al-Huweidar, a Saudi human-rights activist, said the move was nothing short of hypocritical.

"Since when is interfering in people's private lives part of the human-rights agenda?" she asked The Media Line rhetorically. "It reflects what they do. They harass people all year long and during holidays they give away candy to people."

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Source: JPost

Saudi Columnist Attacks Custom of Honor Killing in Saudi Society

Recently, in Saudi Arabia, two sisters were murdered by their brother after they were picked up by the Saudi religious police on suspicion of hanging around with boys. [1] The incident inflamed the Saudi press, particularly because the brother killed them immediately after their father arrived to collect them from the police station.

In her column in the Saudi daily Al-Watan, liberal Saudi columnist Maliha Al-Shahhab wrote that Saudi society was backsliding, and that honor killing was just like the custom of burying girls alive that prevailed during the Jahiliyya [2] - which, she said, was one of the customs that Islam came to eradicate.

Following is a translation of her column, which was titled "[The Custom] of Burying Girls Alive is Still With Us": [3]

"Early last month, a catastrophe shocked [our] society. The publication of the news in the papers caused a deluge [of reactions] from writers. As for me, I was not just shocked; I simply could not comprehend it, and it took me some time to understand what had taken place.

"Two girls in the dawn of their youth, aged 15 and 16... [and] not yet emerged from the cocoon of innocence, were suspected [of hanging around with boys] and were apprehended [by the religious police]. The officials who arrested them were from this society, and knew better than anyone how a family reacts to being informed of such an incident involving one of its daughters, and also what a girl would be exposed to on the part of her family and society after being arrested. But these [officials] had no pity for the girls, [despite] the air of girlhood wafting from them, and they phoned their father."

"I imagine [the two girls] Rim and Nouf waiting for their father, their young hearts full of joy at being rescued, despite the fear that filled them... Once their father had picked them up... they hadn't taken their first step... [before] they were welcomed by shots of death, burying them alive. What were their souls praying for at that moment? A brother murdered his two sisters!

"Who planted in a young boy the notion of purging the [family] honor? Who programmed him to be a ticking bomb set to detonate at a specific time - without equipping him with the tools of insight that would give him some self-control? Who is responsible for this crime, for this senseless [act of] burying [them] alive, for the contempt for the lives and fate of others?

"These painful questions must be answered, in order to stop this frightening backsliding of a society that thinks itself part of human civilization... It would be proper for us to prepare ourselves to take part in the development of humanity by [contributing] all the values of which we boast to the nations.

"We thought that we belonged [to human civilization] - but suddenly we discovered that not only are we outside it, but that... we are going backwards, to the Jahiliyya, and adopting its concepts - concepts that Islam came to ban."

Source: MEMRI

Saudi film festival is cancelled in state crackdown on culture

By Souhail Karam, Reuters, in Riyadh | 20 July

Saudi Arabia's only film festival has been cancelled, dealing a blow to reformist hopes of an easing of clerical control over culture that was raised by the low-key return of cinemas in December.

In a country where cinemas were banned for almost three decades, the Jeddah Film Festival has since 2006 presented aspiring Saudi film-makers and actors with a rare opportunity to mingle with more experienced peers from other countries. On the eve of the festival, Mamdouh Salem, one of the festival's organisers, received a call. He said: "The governorate of Jeddah notified us of the festival's cancellation after it received instructions from official parties. We were not told why."

Abdullah al-Alami, a Saudi writer, said he was not sure why the fourth Jeddah festival, expected to start in the Islamic kingdom's most liberal city this weekend, was cancelled.

"However, there is a trend of attacking cultural festivities," he added. "This is a dark day for art and literature in our modern history." King Abdullah has tried cautious reforms in the kingdom, a US ally which has no elected parliament, but diplomats say he is facing resistance from conservatives opposing changes.

Many Saudi religious conservatives believe films from more liberal Arab countries such as Egypt could violate religious taboos. Some also view cinema and acting as a form of dissembling inconsistent with Islam.

"The film festival was cancelled upon indirect instructions from the interior ministry," said an official at the information and culture ministry.

Cinema made a low-key return in December with the showing in Jeddah and another southern city of the Saudi comedy Menahi. The film, produced by a company owned by King Abdullah's nephew, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, attracted such large numbers that it had to be screened up to eight times a day. It was shown before mixed audiences, a rare thing to happen in a country that bans unrelated men and women from mixing.

But there was a sharp reaction from Ibrahim al-Ghaith, the former head of the kingdom's religious police, which showed the opposition from hard-liners to efforts to open up the society. He said cinema was an evil, although he eased his tone 24 hours later to say cinemas should show good things and not violate teachings of Islam.

In February, King Abdullah removed Mr Ghaith and another influential cleric in a wide government reshuffle. However, when the film came to the the more conservative capital, Riyadh, local newspapers reported that conservative Saudis, including volunteers with the religious police, tried to disturb the screening. The Saudi Interior Minister, Prince Nayef bin Abdul-Aziz, later signalled his backing for the religious police saying they were on a par with the security forces.

Prince Alwaleeed was undettered. His company, Rotana, boldly put itself up as the main sponsor of the Jeddah festival, donating proceeds from his film.

The week-long festival was to have featured a competition between eight feature films made in the Gulf – two from Saudi Arabia itself – and show dozens more shorts by local and regional film-makers.

Source: The Independent

Saudi lawyer challenges kingdom's religious police

A Saudi lawyer is appealing a sentence that exonerated the kingdom’s religious police from killing a man during his arrest.

A court in Riyadh last November acquitted two members of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (CPVPV) of causing the death of a Saudi citizen during a raid on his home in May 2007.

The citizen, Suleiman A-Hurei’si, was suspected of distributing alcohol from his home, a practice prohibited in the strictly Muslim kingdom.

The lawyer, ‘Abd A-Rahman A-Lahim, said Al-Hurei’si died after being beaten by the religious police, also known as the Mutawwa’in.

The court originally cleared the two policemen for lack of sufficient evidence. Read more ...

Source: The Media Line News Agency

Saudi professor faces lashes for having coffee with female 'student'

By Michael Theodoulou

A university professor allegedly caught in a Saudi-style honey trap has been sentenced to 180 lashes and eight months in jail – for having coffee with a girl.

The man, a prominent and well-respected Saudi teacher of psychology at Umm al-Qra University in the holy city of Mecca, was framed by the religious police after he angered some of their members at a training course, his lawyer said.

The academic has not been named by the local media, which have given his case wide coverage, but one senior Saudi journalist told The Times he was Dr Abu Ruzaiz, a married man in his late 50s with children. Read more ...

Source: Times

International fury over Saudi Arabia's plans to behead woman accused of being a witch

The Saudi Arabian king today faced international outcry over the planned beheading of a woman accused of being a witch.

Fawza Falih turned two men impotent, a court heard in the ultra-religious state where "performing supernatural occurrences" is considered an offence against Islam.

Judges were also told she cast a spell to bring about the return of a divorced man's ex-wife.

But international charity Human Rights Watch said King Abdullah's religious police had forced a confession out of her.

And they claim the judges who tried her in the northern town of Quraiyat never gave her the opportunity to prove her innocence in the face of "absurd charges that have no basis in law." Read more ...

Source: Daily Mail
H/T: Atlas