COMMITTEE FOR THE PROPAGATION OF VIRTUE AND THE PREVENTION OF VICE

The 'Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice' (abbreviated 'CPVPV'; هيئه الأمر بالمعروف و النهي عن المنكر in Arabic) is the English name of the Saudi Arabian government bureaucracy employing "religious police" or ''mutaween'' (مطوعين romanized in English) to enforce Sharia Law within that Islamic nation. (See ''mutawa'een'' for a list of variant spellings and an extended description of Islamic religious police.)
Its approximately 3500 members, and many more volunteers, patrol the streets enforcing dress codes, strict separation of men and women, salah prayer by Muslims during prayer times, and other behavior it believes commanded by Islam.

Contents

Enforcement

Controversy

Reform

Other similar groups

References

External links

News items

General

See also

Enforcement

The religion police in Saudi Arabia are employed in direct order of command of King Abdullah. They are tasked with enforcing Sharia as defined in Saudi Arabia. In addition to having the power to arrest anyone engaged in homosexual acts, prostitution, fornication, or proselytizing of non-Muslim religions, they can also arrest unrelated males and females caught socializing, enforce Islamic dress-codes, Muslim dietary laws (e.g. pork), store closures during the prayer time. They prohibit the consumption or sale of alcoholic beverages and seize banned consumer products and media regarded as un-Islamic (such as CDs/DVDs of various Western musical groups, television shows and film). They also actively prevent the religious practices of other religions within Saudi Arabia.^[1][2]
Saudi mutaween are often accompanied by the regular police, but also patrol without police escort. They recently launched a website on which un-Islamic behavior can be reported. ^[3][4][5][6]
Among the Western practices suppressed by the Mutaween is the celebration of Valentine's Day. Condemning the festivities as a "pagan feast", Mutaween inspect hotels, restaurants, coffeehouses, and gift shops on February 14 to prevent Muslim couples from giving each other Valentines or other presents. The sale of red roses, red stuffed animals, red greeting cards and other red gift items is banned according to store owners. These items are confiscated, and those selling them subject to prosecution. ^[7][8]
More recently, the police have issued a decree banning the sale of dogs and cats, also seen as a sign of Western influence. The decree which applies to the Red Sea port city of Jiddah and the holy city of Mecca bans the sale of cats and dogs because “some youths have been buying them and parading them in public,” according to a memo from the Municipal Affairs Ministry to Jiddah’s city government.^[9]

Controversy

In May 2007 a man alleged to have alcohol in his home was arrested and reportedly beaten to death by CPVPV members in the Al-Oraija district of Riyadh. "The father of the deceased said that commission members continued to beat his handcuffed son, even though he was already covered in blood, until he died" at the Oraija CPVPV center in Riyadh.^[10]
Mutaween suppression of religious activity by non-Muslims in Saudi Arabia is also controversial. Asia News alleges that "at least one million" Roman Catholics in the kingdom are being "denied pastoral care ... none of them can participate in mass while they are in Saudi Arabia .... Catechism for their children – nearly 100,000 – is banned." It reports the arrest of a Catholic priest for saying mass. On 5 April, 2006 a Catholic priest, "Fr.George [Joshua] had just celebrated mass in a private house when seven religious policemen (muttawa) broke into the house together with two ordinary policemen. The police arrested the priest and another person." ^[11]
One of the most widely criticized examples of mutaween enforcement of Sharia law came in March of 2002, when 14 young girls died of burns or smoke asphyxiation by an accidental fire that engulfed their public school in Mecca. According to the statements of parents, firemen, and the regular police forces present at the scene, the religious police forcibly prevented girls from escaping the burning school by locking the doors of the school from the outside, and barring firemen from entering the school to save the girls, beating some of the girls and civil defense personnel in the process. Mutaween would not allow the girls to escape or to be saved because they were `not properly covered,` and the mutaween did not want physical contact to take place between the girls and the civil defense forces for fear of sexual enticement. The CPVPV denied the charges of beating or locking the gates but the incident and the accounts of witnesses were reported in Saudi newspapers such as the Saudi Gazette and Al-Iqtisaddiyya. The result was a very rare public criticism of the group.^[12]
Some members of the CPVPV have also been accused of political subversion and of being ex-convicts who were motivated to achieve Hafiz (Quran) as a way of reducing their prison sentences. Author Lawrence Wright has written of a conflict between the Mutaween and at least one allied imam and Turki bin Faisal Al Saud, the head of the Department of General Intelligence (Al Mukhabarat Al A'amah) between 1977 and 2001. After an imam denounced a female charitable organizations run by some of Turki's sisters and accused them of being "whores" during a Friday sermon, Turki demanded and received an apology. He then "secretly began monitoring members of the muttawa. He learned that many of them were ex-convicts whose only job qualification was that they had memorized the Quran in order to reduce their sentences." But Turki believed they had become "so powerful" they "threatened to overthrow the government."^[13]
The Saudi The Religious Policeman is a frequent critic of the group and its activities.

Reform

In July 2006 it was announced that the committee would no longer be allowed to interrogate those it arrests for behavior deemed un-Islamic. Prior to this commission members enjoyed almost total power to arrest, detain, and interrogate those suspected of violating the Sharia.^[14].
The Saudi Mutaween "announced on June 10 2007, the creation of a “''department of rules and regulations''” to ensure the activities of commission members comply with the law, after coming under heavy pressure for the death of two people in its custody in less than two weeks" [1]. The governmental National Society for Human Rights criticised the behaviour of the religious police in May 2007 in its first report since its establishment in March 2004. In May 2006, the Interior Ministry issued a decree stating that “''the role of the commission will end after it arrests the culprit or culprits and hands them over to police, who will then decide whether to refer them to the public prosecutor''”.
Time Magazine ran a report about the Mutaween in August 2007. It noted that "a campaign using text messages sent to mobile phones is calling on a million Saudis to declare that “''2007 is the year of liberation''”". Despite statements of reform, the Mutaween turned down Time's request for interviews.^[15]

Other similar groups

Outside of Saudi Arabia, the Taliban regime, or Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, also had a "Ministry of the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice" with a very similar religious policing function. The Taliban (deposed in 2001), are thought to have borrowed the Saudi policing policy not only because they also had a strict Sharia law policy, but because of important financial and diplomatic support Saudi Arabia gave them.^[16]

References

1. http://www.asianews.it/view.php?l=en&art=5869
2. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2399885.stm
3. http://www.hesbah.gov.sa/disapprove.asp
4. http://www.corpun.com/webjcpnz.htm#saudi
5. http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGMDE230572000?open&of=ENG-SAU
6. http://www.indexonline.org/en/indexindex/articles/2005/1/saudi-arabia-flogging-used-to-silence-protes.shtml
7. Valentine's Day in Saudi Arabia by Stephen Schwartz & Irfan al-Alawi 03/05/2007, Volume 012, Issue 24
8. "200 Arrested in Mina for Celebrating Valentine's Day", ''Arab News,'' February 18, 2004
9. Cats and dogs banned by Saudi religious police, MSNBC, Dec 18, 2006
10. Commission Members Probed for Forced Entry and Murder

11. Catholic priest arrested and expelled from Riyadh, April 10, 2006, AsiaNews
12. Abou el Fadl, Khaled, ''The Great Theft'', (2005), p.250-2
13. Wright, Lawrence, ''Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11,'' by Lawrence Wright, NY, Knopf, 2006, p.149
14. Arab Reform Bulletin, July 2006
15. Time Europe 08/06/07 Vice Squad Retrieved 08/01/07
16. Rashid, Ahmed, ''Taliban'', Yale University Press, (2000), p.201

External links

News items

★ Teddy bears and roses seized on Valentine’s Day Sunday 17 February 2002

General

★ Official site of Province of Medina's branch

★ Amnesty International Report 2002 - Middle East and North Africa

★ BBC Article

See also

★ Mutaween

★ Sharia