It’s not only women who come in for abuse from the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice in Saudi Arabia. Men, too, find themselves on the receiving end of criticism and more from the religious police. Saudi Gazette reports on the case of a man who was bothered because the vice cops didn’t like his trousers. He, in turn, has filed his own legal complaint…
‘Wrong trousers’ man gets bail
MADINA – The Commission for Investigation and Prosecution (CIP) has released on bail a man who was arrested by the Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (the Hai’a) last Saturday for wearing trousers “deemed immoral”.
Al-Watan Arabic daily reported Tuesday that investigations are continuing into the incident, and the Hai’a has been asked to urgently provide their version of events which led to Muhammad Sultan accusing them of “assault” and “unlawful detention inside a restaurant” after he was stopped on Sultana Street in Madina and handed over to the police who in turn passed him on to the CIP.
His release on bail, Al-Watan said, will continue until “investigations into the two disputing parties are concluded”.
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The Commission is sending out a questionnaire asking the public how it views its actions. Depending on how this survey is conducted, it might be an interesting read.
The floods that killed over 120 people in Jeddah last November created a new attitude in Saudi society, one that publicly demanded public accountability of officials whose actions and inactions led to the disaster. In the past, people might grouse, but they did it in private.
Now, Arab News reports, a number of officials will be facing trial. Just who and just how many remain opaque though. Transparency in governmental and legal operations is a concept not fully embraced by either the government or society. [See post below on 'naming and shaming'.]
Jeddah flood disaster accused to stand trial
JEDDAH: The files of those allegedly responsible for the disastrous consequences of the November Jeddah floods have been transferred to the Court of Grievances, sources have said.
They also disclosed plans to set up joint panels on behalf of the Justice Ministry and Court of Grievances in order to try them.
“Those accused will appear before the administrative court and if the defendant wants to appeal, he should approach the administrative appeal court and then appear before the higher administrative court,” Al-Madinah reported on Tuesday.
The source said the date for the trial had not been fixed yet.
“The formation of the panels including members of the ministry and the Court of Grievances is still ongoing,” he said.
He did not disclose the number of people who are facing trial.
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I’ve noted before how Saudi society is reticent to ‘name and shame’ miscreants, even when they’ve been convicted of crimes. There’s a belief that the shame falls not only on the malfeasor, but also on his/her family, composed of innocents. This piece from Arab News discusses the issue a bit more. I can certainly agree that it’s not entirely necessary to name those involved in domestic abuse situations—though once one is adjudged guilty and sentenced seem to move the issue from private to public spheres. Nor, arguably, might it be useful to name those who are only charged, but not yet tried.
Those who violate laws, however, should not be able to escape accountability, even public accountability.
‘Accused should not be publicly identified’
JEDDAH: Saudi rights activists and legal experts have demanded that those accused in court should not be publicly identified until a guilty verdict is reached to avoid defamation. But they do not want any public identification in domestic abuse cases.
“That is because it would, obviously, negatively affect the interests of the other party involved. Moreover, severe punishments to such abusers, including prison time, lashes and deprival of some of their rights could be more effective than publicizing their names,” legal expert Khaled Abu Rashid told Arab News.
However, Abu Rashid added that publicizing the names of abusers who were family members was a form of punishment that did not breach Islamic Law.
Hussein Al-Sharif, supervisor general of the Human Rights Society in Makkah, said public identification was an option left purely to the discretion of a judge.
In Islamic legal terminology identification is known as taazir.
Al-Sharif did not agree with the lenient attitude of judges toward abusers who were also family members. “Anyone who abuses his family is considered a mentally ill man who needs to be treated. On the contrary, in many cases it has been proven beyond doubt that the abuser was not sick at all. What he needed was rehabilitation programs that ensured a positive behavioral change,” he said.
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Arab News runs this article noting two Saudi judges arguing for codification of the Saudi legal system. In it, the judges point out why codification is necessary and how it is legitimate to do so under Shariah law. They note that resistance to codification is coming from those who don’t understand the judicial system (I’m assuming they’re also including some judges in this group). Codification, they say, protects rights and limits governmental actions.
Need to codify laws stressed
MUHAMMAD HUMAIDAN | ARAB NEWSJEDDAH: Two judges from the General Court in Jeddah, Hamad Al-Arwan and Abdul Ilah Al-Arwan, have stressed the importance of spreading a culture of human rights in legal circles.
The judges made the comments at a seminar — titled Human Rights in the New Legal System — organized by the National Society for Human Rights at the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry to mark Arab Day of Human Rights on Sunday.
The judges also said there is a need to codify the Kingdom’s laws to make the legal system easier for the public to understand. They further called on critics of the Saudi judiciary to familiarize themselves with the legal system before criticizing.
… “The aim of the codification is to make it easy for the public to know about regulations and understand their legal rights besides giving them an opportunity to learn what the punishment for a violation is and how some violations can be redressed.”
He added that ignorance of court procedures and laws among people involved in court cases leads to delays in getting justice, particularly in cases of family violence.
Speaking about the need for people to know what their legal rights are, Hamad said: “People are not aware that people, cars or private mail cannot be checked without valid and legal justification. No woman can be searched except in the presence of another woman.
“Only authorized officials can carry out such searches. The General Board for Prosecution and Investigation is the only body authorized to interrogate people. If any unauthorized person or official interrogates or searches a person, then the person involved has a right to seek legal action.”
The Israeli-focused Middle Eastern Media Research Institute (MEMRI) takes a look at how Egypt and Saudi Arabia are trying to contend with child marriages. In Egypt, they are forbidden by law but go on nevertheless; in Saudi Arabia, reformers have a hard time countering religionists who point to the Prophet’s marriage to the child Aisha as an example of proper behavior. The media in both countries, however, are fighting to protect children. Of particular note, I think, is the realization on the part of some Saudis that this should be a matter of law, not fatwa.
MEMRI also provides a selection of Saudi editorial cartoons on the subject, this among them:
Credit: Hajed for Al-Jazeera
In Egypt and Saudi Arabia, Conflict Escalates
over Child Bride Marriages
Y. Admon and L. Azuri*Saudi Arabia has recently seen a rising tide of criticism over child bride marriages, especially following the marriage of a 12-year-old girl to her father’s 80-year-old cousin who already had three wives.[1] The phenomenon of underage marriage, extensively covered in the Saudi press during the last two years, has come under intense fire from social bodies and activists, and more recently from Saudi princesses, who demanded that it be stopped.
This wave of criticism prompted the Saudi press to publish articles detailing the attempts made by official, legal, and social elements to curb the practice by urging the banning of marriage under the age of 18. So far, however, these attempts have failed to gain momentum, due to the religious custom, well established in Saudi Arabia, permitting the marriage of underage girls based on the tradition that the Prophet Muhammad married his wife ‘Aisha when she was only six. [2]
The struggle against child marriages has also intensified in Egypt, which does ban marriage under the age of 18, but which has nevertheless in the past year seen a nationwide increase of child bride marriages. Egyptian Mufti ‘Ali Gum’a condemned the phenomenon, calling it a sin deserving of punishment.
The following report reviews the escalating conflict over child bride marriages and current attempts in Egypt and Saudi Arabia to reduce it.
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Arab News translates an article from the Arabic daily Al-Watan in which the writer points to the selective application of Islamic principles when it comes to marriage. She’s particularly unhappy with the way some people discover a religious prohibition against Saudi women marrying non-Saudis, Muslim though they may be. The current practice—and government policy—she argues, lead to patent injustice.
Saudi Arabia makes it complicated for a Saudi male to marry a foreign woman. It’s even harder for a Saudi woman to marry a foreign man. The process and its application need to be re-examined.
Facilitate marriage of Saudi women to non-Saudis
AMAL ZAHID | AL-WATANWhy did we make polygamy a solution to the problem of spinsterhood and not the facilitation of marriages of Saudi women to non-Saudi men whether they are Muslim Arabs or non-Arab Muslims? Why is it that some of our men flex their muscles and ask women to accept polygamy and not to object to being a second wife? Why do they enter into doubtful marriage unions of misyar and misfar while turning a blind eye to the marriages that are legitimate and not forbidden by religion?
Paradoxically, these people bend religion to suit their personal whims. Some men will pretend to follow the directives of religion when it comes to polygamy and underage marriage while completely ignoring the teachings of Islam when it comes to a Saudi woman marrying a Muslim foreigner! The irony is that these people are very well aware that Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) asked Muslims not to refuse to marry their women to Muslim men with good manners.
The Prophet (pbuh) made piety and good manners the parameter of preferences among Muslims, but the rotten teachings of racism and the laws of tribalism do not bother with Islam or its teachings when it comes to women! The universe will crumble if a Saudi woman dares to think of marrying a man from another nationality, but a Saudi man can marry up to four women regardless of nationality. His parents will not care about the background of his wife and will not be concerned about her personal qualifications or her respect to the norms and traditions.
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Immigration control at international airports is rarely fun. Some places make it worse. Flying into a Saudi airport on a jumbo jet inevitably means long queues. It can also mean surly officials examining passports and visas, though to be honest, my last several trips have been relatively easy. That’s not always the case, though, particularly for workers coming in from other countries.
Arab News reports that Immigration officers are going to be getting some needed training, in both manners and English as the global lingua franca. That should help, but I think hiring more officers would also help. Very often, particularly for late night arrivals, you see very long lines of non-Arab, non-diplomatic travelers who will be inching their way forward for well over an hour before getting to the desk. The officers assigned to GCC Immigration Control appear to believe it not their jobs to open up to non-GCC travelers once all the GCC passengers have passed through their lines. Or, perhaps, these are only the junior officers who can’t be trusted to deal with more complex issues presented by travelers who don’t speak Arabic?
Immigration officials to get lessons in etiquette
JEDDAH: Passport Department personnel, consisting of officers and privates working at Saudi Arabia’s airports and other inlets, will be sent abroad for intensive English language courses and etiquette training, according to Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper.
“Some of our staff lack diplomacy in dealing with passengers and many of them cannot communicate in English,” Lt. Col. Talal Al-Malik, a spokesman for the Passport Department, told the newspaper.
He said groups of 60 officers and privates will be sent to Canada, Australia and other countries to study English for a year. He said the program started last year and would benefit hundreds of their staff.
“The program, under the directives of Second Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior Prince Naif, is aimed at improving the English language of our staff and teaching them how to deal with passengers,” Al-Malik said.
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Another interesting post from Volokh Conspiracy involving ‘religious accommodation’, that is, how laws or regulations and religious belief intersect. The issue here is a woman working for a private security firm. She believes that her religion requires her to cover her head while in public. The company says that such a head covering violates company policy which requires a uniform appearance. Neither side would bend and the company fired her.
The woman then filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), a government organization designed to do what its title says, which supported her claim. The discussion finds that this woman’s case is distinguishable from similar cases involving police and fire departments because the woman’s employer is a private company, with less compelling need for uniformity in all regards.
Oh, by the way… the head covering under discussion is not a hijab!
EEOC Concludes Company Should Have
Reasonably Accommodated Employee’s
Felt Religious Obligation to Wear a Headscarf
Eugene VolokhAccording to the Complaint in EEOC v. Pollard Agency, filed last week, the Pollard Agency fired an employee for “wearing a headscarf to cover her hair, which is a sincerely held religious belief as required by her faith.” The EEOC argues that this violates the duty of religious accommodation under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (as amended in 1972).
I think the EEOC is likely right, if it’s discussion of the facts is correct. Title VII requires employers to provide reasonable religious accommodations, by (1) giving religious employees special exemptions from generally applicable job requirements (2) if the requirements interfere with an employee’s “religious observance and practice” and (3) such an exemption doesn’t impose “undue hardship on the conduct of the employer’s business,” 42 U.S.C. § 2000e(j). Exemptions from dress codes, such as no-hat rules, requirements that everyone wear pants (which some religious groups object to, when applied to women), and the like, are a classic example of reasonable accommodations, since an employer can generally grant them without an undue hardship.
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Here’s an interesting column from Maureen Dowd, in The New York Times. She writes of attending an art exhibit in Riyadh that brought together male and female artists, and their work, of course! What she found surprising—as did some Saudi participants—was that the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice didn’t show up to shut it down. Taken together with the post below (on how the Haya stepped in to protect the Riyadh Book Fair), it’s beginning to look as though the Saudi religious police have gotten on board with the argument that ikhtilat does not equal khulwa. I suspect some arms had to be twisted to get to this point, but that seems worth the doing.
The column goes on to discuss with Saudi women how they prefer to set their own agenda when it comes to women’s rights. I do note that the Saudi women speaking here could be considered ‘elite’, with a different set of values than rural Saudis might have. Nonetheless, this is an exceptional article, particularly considering the source…
Driving Miss Saudi
MAUREEN DOWDIn other capitals of the world, it would not have been an extraordinary scene.
An opening at a hot new art gallery with men and women mingling and enjoying themselves.
But in this case, part of the frisson was nerves. Would the marauding religious police see unmarried — and some uncovered — women talking freely with men in the merry crowd of 600 and stage a raid?
It was an unlikely moment, SoHo comes to Saudi Arabia — the first mixed exhibition anyone can remember in Riyadh, the stultifying capital of a country that bans any exhibition of skin, fun or romance.
But the most astonishing part was that the Islamic purity enforcers failed to show up at Art Pure.
“I was worried, but the religious police just sort of disappeared,” recalled Mounira Ajlani, the mother of Noura Bouzo, a 27-year-old artist featured at the exhibition who painted the saucy “Saudi Bling.” “It was very relaxed, very normal. Everyone was saying, ‘Are we in Saudi Arabia?’ ”
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Over the years, book fairs and literary festivals in Saudi Arabia have tended to attract two sorts of people: those interested in the the written word and those who will take offense at anything done in a manner different than it was done 1,400 years ago. Dust ups with religious/social conservatives objecting to what books say or that men and women might be in the same room have been covered by the Saudi media.
Now, it appears, the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice are stepping in at the Riyadh International Book Fair to keep the extremists away from those playing a useful role in the Fair. Saudi Gazette reports:
Hai’a steps in for media members
RIYADH – Two certified members of the media tasked with covering the Riyadh Book Fair were permitted to continue their work after members of the Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (the Hai’a) stepped in to keep an “extremist” at bay, Al-Watan Arabic daily reported Friday.
Al-Watan said that a man and a woman working for an unnamed satellite television station were going about their business at the fair when they were approached by a man who told them it was “not permitted for a man to meet with a woman”.
When the journalists asked him in what capacity he was addressing them, he replied: “As a promoter of virtue”, and threatened to call over the Hai’a.
His assistance was not required, however, as the increasingly heated confrontation attracted officials from the Hai’a all by itself, and they swiftly brought the face-off to a peaceful conclusion allowing the TV journalists to continue about their business.
Al-Watan said the Hai’a officials “understood the situation and appreciated the nature of the fair’s media committee’s work”. – SG
Here’s a little wrinkle in Saudi marriage and divorce laws of which I wasn’t aware. ‘Til now, only the ex-husband in a divorce received the original divorce documents. But a divorced woman needs to produce the original documents before she can remarry. This lets husbands delay or otherwise compromise the woman’s ability to move on simply by not letting her have the papers.
This piece, running in Saudi Gazette/Okaz, says that now the woman will receive the original copies of the divorce documents while the husband will receive photocopies. I suspect that husbands, too, need the originals at some point, though. So why can’t both receive originals? Make the document in two parts, each of which is considered original, and give them to both parties. That can’t be terribly complicated. Or is there some aspect of Shariah law that dislikes having two ‘originals’?
Women to get original divorce papers
Hana Al-IlwaniJEDDAH – A divorced woman now has the right to have the original copy of her official court divorce document, judicial sources have said.
The divorced husband will only receive a photocopy of the document.
The ministry has taken the step following complaints of some divorced women that their ex-husbands used the original copy to blackmail them or their families, the ministry said. The complaints stated that divorced women have had a hard time getting their official divorce documents from their ex-husbands.
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Figuratively speaking, heads are starting to roll in Jeddah in the aftermath of November’s killer floods. Saudi Gazette/Okaz report that foreigners holding high positions in the Jeddah mayor’s office are to be sacked. These individuals may not have played a direct—or any—role in the Jeddah flooding, but they hold their positions outside legal requirements, as discovered during the flood investigations, and so must go.
This strikes me as trimming around the edges of the infrastructure problems, but cleaning up the system is a necessary step if accountability is to be achieved. Pity for those people who are losing their jobs (and fat salaries!), though…
Leading foreigners at mayoralty to be fired
Saud Al-BarakatiJEDDAH – The service of foreigners holding leading jobs at the Jeddah Mayoralty will be terminated within two weeks, sources said.
The order to the mayoralty to terminate their services has come from the Control and Investigation Bureau following the recently completed investigation into the Jeddah flood disaster that claimed over 120 lives and destroyed numerous properties east of Jeddah.
An American national was found to occupy the most senior position held by a foreigner, as an assistant to the mayor, with a “whopping” monthly salary of SR120,000 ($32,000), the sources said.
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