JEDDAH, 28 June 2006 — The Shoura Council has rejected three recommendations made for the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. Only one of the four recommendations proposed by the Shoura Council Committee for Islamic, Judicial and Human Rights Affairs in support of the commission was approved.
The three rejected recommendations were to increase the commission’s annual budget by SR5 million, to increase the annual salary of its field workers by 20 percent and finally to open 20 new departments annually in various parts of the Kingdom.
According to Shoura Council members, this is the first time in the council’s history that recommendations made by one of its major committees have been rejected.
The council voted in favor of the recommendation to create suitable jobs for graduates of “The Higher Institution for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice.”
Dr. Talal Bakri, a member of the Shoura Council, said the votes in support of the recommendations failed to reach a quorum. He criticized the commission’s annual report as being more of “a press release” than a report. “It was too generalized and lacked specifics,” he said.
The report noted that the commission had conducted more than 384,000 raids related to beliefs, worship, morality, narcotics, literature, commercial establishments, alcohol and others. Sources in the council said that a number of questions were raised about what exactly was wrong in the alleged errors in worship.
The members were involved in serious discussion of complaints made against the commission and its activities by many members of the public.
