Here’s the headline:
Saudi Arabia Restricts Religious Police
Here’s the lead:
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia May 25, 2006 (AP)— The Interior Ministry said it is taking measures to restrict the powers of the agency that runs the religious police, a force resented by many Saudis for interfering in their personal lives.
In a decree carried by the official Saudi Press Agency late Wednesday, Interior Minister Prince Nayef said members of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, or the religious police, can still make arrests in cases like the harassment of women, but probes will now be conducted by the public prosecutors.
“The role of the commission … ends with the arrest of the suspect or suspects,” said the decree, sent to provincial governors across the kingdom.
Wow, that sounds great, doesn’t it? Finally, the Saudi religious fanatics are going to start reining in the dreaded muttawa, the force responsible for sending young Saudi girls back to their deaths in a burning school because they fled without first putting on their hijabs.
So, an announcement that the Saudis are “reining in” the muttawa is a good thing. Right? So. Let’s go see what the big change is.
The morality squad has long enjoyed wide and unchallenged powers. Its members roam public places, such as malls, markets and universities, looking for such infractions as unrelated men and women mingling in public, men skipping the five daily prayers and women with strands of hair showing from under their veil.
They’re going to stop them from beating women for having hair showing?
They’ve scolded salesmen for dressing elegantly, waiters for serving food with a smile and young women for carrying pictures of heartthrobs, such as actor Leonardo di Caprio.
They’re going to stop them from harassing people who smile? They’re going to stop harrassing young women for having pictures of boys? They’re going to stop going after people in western dress?
After the arrests, the religious police, known as muttawa in Arabic, would sometimes hold people incommunicado and insist on taking part in ensuing probes.
While some Saudis believe the commission plays a vital role in ensuring full compliance with the strict school of Islam Saudi Arabia follows, others have been speaking out against its intrusions. Some newspapers have published anecdotes of Saudi encounters with the feared agents.
Ah. I see. They’re going to stop the muttawa from beating and torturing people they have arrested. They’ll leave it up to the professional torturers, I presume.
In other words, nothing has really changed. The Saudis aren’t “reining in” the dreaded muttawa. What this is, in fact, is a puff piece on Saudi Arabia that purports to pass along news, but in fact passes along nothing. And please note that most major U.S. newspapers publish international news in one- to three-paragraph excerpts. So you will see the first three paragraphs, making people think the Saudis are reforming.
It works on the same level as the Saudi insistence that they have changed their textbooks to take out the anti-Western hatred. Whoops, they forgot to do that, didn’t they?
You would think that a worldwide news service would be ashamed to release this piece of PR flackery and call it news.