RIYADH, 6 May — The Commerce Ministry has confiscated more than 82,000 abayas, the obligatory all-covering black cloaks for women, that violated Islamic rules, a newspaper said yesterday.
Al-Jazirah daily said the bust came after ministry teams searched more than 300 shops and 50 factories in the cities of Jeddah, Riyadh and Dammam.
The confiscated cloaks were found to be revealing, tight and carried drawings and decorations in violation of a fatwa, or religious ruling, which requires that “decent women’s cloaks” should also be thick and open from the front only.
The crackdown was conducted by the ministry in coordination with the Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice.
Cloaks found to be in violation of the rules will be confiscated and destroyed, while punitive measures will be taken against factories producing them, an official warned. Non-regulation cloaks have increasingly been seen in recent months being worn by women in the Kingdom's bigger cities.
Last October, the ministry ordered a similar crackdown on a style of abaya which had the phrase “dare you touch me?” printed on its back in Arabic. The ministry ordered all its branches in the Kingdom to withdraw the cloak from shopping centers, and inspectors conducted raids on women's clothes shops.
