JEDDAH, 4 May 2003 — A 40-year-old Saudi woman has accused three Khamis Mushayt-based officials of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice of beating and humiliating her, Al-Watan daily reported yesterday.

The woman is urging the authorities to investigate the case and protect her rights, the newspaper added.

However, Hasan Hatshan Al-Qarni, director of the commission’s office in Khamis Mushayt’s Aziziya district, flatly denied the allegation, saying that his officials arrested the woman when they found her with a person not related to her inside a taxi in a deserted area.

He also refuted the allegation that his officials “beat her”.

The woman said she was looking after her five children by buying and selling sheep, as her 80-year-old husband was unfit to work. The arrest took place, she insisted, while she was going to her farm in a taxi.

There are bruises on her body as a result of the beating she received, she says.

“Before reaching the farm a vehicle belonging to the commission stopped in front of the taxi and an official, who was in his 20s and accompanied by a security officer, walked toward the car,” the woman told Al-Watan.

“Their behavior frightened me. I told them not to harm me as I was going to my husband’s farm located nearby. But the official manhandled me and fought with me until the police officer intervened and asked the man from the commission to leave me alone,” she explained.

In the meantime, she contacted the secondary school where her son was studying and asked them to send him to the scene immediately. The commission’s official also contacted his office and asked for back-up.

Within minutes, another two elderly officials were arriving in another vehicle.

“I told the two officials that their colleague had attacked me. But they didn’t listen to what I was saying and asked me to get into their vehicle. I asked them to wait until my son arrived or to inform my husband at our farm, but they refused,” the woman said.

She added that the commission officials forced her into their vehicle and beat her up.

“One of them hit my left ear and the back of my neck,” she claimed.

The officials later took her to a house and locked her in a room, she told Al-Watan.

The woman also said that the officials confiscated her mobile phone.

The commission later released her and handed her over to her son, who had to sign a statement agreeing that his mother had not been harmed, the paper said, quoting the woman. The woman later went to the military hospital in Khamis Mushayt and underwent a complete check up, which showed that she had sustained bruises as a result of the alleged beatings, the paper said. She said the hospital was ready to present the report to the authorities.

But Al-Qarni, the commission’s head, said they had treated the woman “nicely”.

“We arrested the woman and the driver when they parked the vehicle in an isolated area notorious for immoral activities,” he said.

“We had kept her in the waiting room for women, not in the detention center,” he said, adding that her son was asked to sign a paper to prove that she was his mother and that she was in good health.

The paper said the commission had also released the driver after he gave an undertaking that he would not give lifts to women in the future.

“If the woman insists that she was attacked, then we have to check the medical report to prove it,” Al-Qarni added.