Not for the first time, the Saudi religious police have made headlines for human rights abuses, but it is unprecedented that legal action has successfully taken the Mutawa to court.
For the first time in the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (Mutawa)'s 81 year history, members of the religious police are being tried in three separate cases in a civil rights court, for crimes against humanity.
In the past, abuses were either hotly denied or dealt with through internal disciplinary action, which one analyst called "a joke". New York-basedHuman Rights Watch's Gulf analyst Christoph Wilke told GSN that during a meeting with the Mutawa's head he asked how often disciplinary action was taken. The response was: "maybe once every two years."
Now critics see signs of change.
Analysts and players canvassed by GSN generally saw the trials as indicative of changing attitudes in Saudi Arabia, where the public and media are finding their voice, and no longer tolerating an organisation that instills so much fear.
Wilke said the public were "fed up", and were showing this by "starting to talk about the abuses, which never happened in the past."
The trials have received unprecedented TV and press coverage.
Abdelrahman Al-Lahim, a controversial local lawyer who is leading the prosecution in one of the three trials the Umm Faisal case told GSN"there is a new generation in Saudi Arabia, which is practising its human rights, more so than in the past." He added that "this is sending a strong signal to the Commission that it is not above the law."
Saudis remain divided over the Mutaween; their supporters argue the religious police are doing God's work.
However, many want to see reform, continuing a public trend that was set in motion by the notorious 2002 incident in Makkah, when Mutaween refused fireman access to rescue 66 girls caught in a school dormitory fire. This caused the death of 14 and injury of 52 girls, mostly aged between 13 and 17, who suffocated, fell from windows or were trampled to death.
The consensus is that Mutaween refused firemen access because they were unsure the girls were covered from head to toe.
However, according toWilke,"if you ask government officials what happened on that day they would tell you a completely different story."
Indeed, no one was tried for the incident, because the Commission and government denied claims the Mutawa had any involvement with the deaths.
Both Lahim and Wilke argued that, after getting away with abuses for so long, there was increasing pressure on the authorities to tackle the Mutaween.
Wilke said this was "coming from the public, the USA and many of Saudi Arabia's liberal elite, including some in the royal family."
Lahim insisted that for change to happen it needs to come from outside the Commission, and preferably be dealt with in the political sphere.
Thirty-five-year-old Lahim has gained notoriety for taking on the most controversial and sensitive cases turning them into high-profile indictments of the justice system. He has been thrown in jail several times and banned from travelling abroad.
Powerful friends
GSN asked the Mutawa's deputy head Sheikh Ibrahim Al-Huaimel about recent events, but he said he was "too busy" to comment.
The Mutawa has so functioned with very little scrutiny. Its president is appointed by the king and has ministerial rank; he reports directly to the monarch or Council of Ministers.
However, the Commission is strongly supported by the Ministry of Interior, which benefits from its intelligence gathering work.
Tensions within government over the Commission were highlighted recently when the Majlis Al-Shura(Consultative Council) voted against granting the Mutawa's budget demands, which included a 20% staff pay rise and extension of its already sprawling 473 office network (GSN 808/4). The feeling was that the Mutaween needed first to clean up their act, before any financial rewards were granted.
This was despite Interior Minister Prince Nayef Bin Abdelaziz's staunch support of the Mutawa. The conservative minister may have been outflanked by the convention that government figures don't usually go against a consensus achieved in theMajlis Al-Shura especially if it seems to have King Abdullah Bin Abdelaziz's tacit support (although, thus far, he has made no public comment).
Prince Nayef 's remit covers the regular police (Al-Shurta) and General Investigations (Al-Mubahith Al-Amma), but not Mutawa activities. Nayef has revealed his agitation at the recent legal proceedings, arguing that "initial investigations prove the Commission did not do anything to cause deaths, but the courts will decide on the matter." In remarks directed to the media he added: "I'm feeling that there are those who are fishing for any mistakes or negative actions from the Commission and trying to magnify them and that is inappropriate."
Sensitive cases
In the Umm Faisal case, which has already gone to trial, a 50 year old woman sought compensation after she along with her three daughters was arrested for wearing an abaya that the Mutaween's estimated was not sufficiently conservative.
The hearing has been postponed twice once on the 1 May when the Mutawa didn't show up, and in early July when there were problems with the legal brief. It is now scheduled for 1 September.
In the second case, also due to be heard in May but postponed to an unknown date, 28 year old Salman Al-Huraisy was arrested during a raid on his home for possession of alcohol, and subsequently beaten to death in front of family members. According to Wilke who has met the family and spoken to the Commission, the final blows took place in theMutawa centre, which he says implies the organisation should also be held accountable. The Mutawa tried to shift the blame onto voluntary members, but one staff member also now faces charges.
The Mutawa has a total 5,000 employees, with another estimated 5,000 (paid) voluntary members. Sources say the Commission has stood down some of its voluntary members after the deaths of Huraisy and a 50-year-old border patrol guard Ahmed Al-Bulaiwai in May.
By law, the Mutawa cannot make on the spot arrests, which used to happen in the past, but can only happen now with a policeman present.
Investigations into Al-Bulaiwai's case are ongoing. He died of a heart attack while being held in custody for driving with a woman who was apparently not a member of his family. His brother said "he went into custody a healthy man, and came out in a funeral procession." The family are calling for the death penalty to punish those involved.
Action is being taken to rein in these abuses as Saudi society evolves. In a recent order,Prince Nayef banned the extraction of confessions and subjected Mutawa premises to a programme of inspection to ensure that no more detainees are held. This may signal that even the more conservative princes are having to adapt to a modernising society and 21st century realities.
Investors in Saudi IPOs shrug off the fatwas
Saudi religious conservatism came into view again when in mid-July a professor of Islamic economics at Riyadh's state-run Imam Mohammed Bin Saud Islamic University, Mohammed Bin Saud Al-Ossaimi, issued a fatwa (religious edict) arguing against investing in the initial public offering (IPO) of Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal's Kingdom Holding Company (KHC). The message was posted on the Arabic website Islamtoday.net, where the public can solicit answers to questions submitted to the scholar/cleric.
Ossaimi said investing in KHC was not permissible because many of Alwaleed's investments were not sharia-compliant. These included taking stakes in commercial banks including Samba Financial Group and US giant Citigroup; companies which display inappropriate images or broadcast un-Islamic music, such as News Corporation and Time Warner; and hotels such as Four Seasons, George V, Movenpick and Disneyland Paris.
This is not Ossaimi's first anti-IPO fatwa; he advised against investing in the 2006 IPO of Jeddah-based Dabbagh Group subsidiary Red Sea Housing, which other clerics approved. Neither fatwa seems to have had much impact on investors. Bankers and officials were reluctant to discuss the fatwa issue, but a Capital Markets Authority official told GSN that the IPO's institutional investor tranche had been covered, and most of the retail tranche's 157m shares were taken up.
In October 2006, in a rare move, a group of scholars, including members of the Supreme Committee of Islamic Scholars in Saudi Arabia, sanctioned the Fawaz Abdulaziz Al- Hokair and Company, despite some opposition from other religious figures. Senior scholar Professor Sheikh Abdullah Al-Mutlaq said the company's operations were shariacompliant, and ruled that Al-Hokair held no liabilities or investments that contradicted with sharia rules and regulations. Detractors who included prominent scholar Dr Yousef Al- Qaradawi, who has been widely linked to the Muslim Brotherhood had long called for the boycott of Al-Hokair, presumably because it brought UK-based retailer Marks & Spencer into the Kingdom.
Gulf States Newsletter 2007
