MADINAH, 8 March 2007 — Members of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice are not allowed to examine cell phones belonging to detainees except in exceptional circumstances, according to senior commission officials.

Sheikh Ibrahim Al-Ghaith, president of the commission, disclosed the policy while speaking to the media on the sidelines of a recent course for newly recruited members of the commission in Madinah.

Al-Ghaith explained that cell phones are only allowed to be examined when they relate to a crime. He added that the unnecessary examination of cell phones is “a violation of the rights of the arrested person as they may contain personal or family secrets, which no one but the owner of the cell phone should see.”

Refuting the charge that the commission’s branches generally handed custody of arrested females to the police instead of giving them advice or treating their cases with confidentiality, Al-Gaith said only six percent of cases involving female suspects were referred to the police in the past two years. He added that 94 percent of cases involving women were settled at the commission’s offices.

“The president’s office, on the other hand, has directed all its branch offices to treat the cases of women with utmost confidentiality such as recording their names without their surnames. Children under 18 are also treated in this manner,” he said.

Speaking about a reported raid and seizure of books by the commission at the recent book fair in Riyadh, the commission chief said, “These are baseless rumors. First, no raid was made by the commission at the exhibition. On the other hand, the commission blocked the showcasing of some books that contradicted the teachings of Islam and the Shariah, through official channels as the books were damaging to society and members of the public.”

Al-Ghaith concluded his remarks with the announcement that the commission had signed contracts with some training institutes across the Kingdom to train workers in English to allow them to communicate with non-Arabs without the need of an interpreter. He said this was an essential development because some of the areas of the commission’s activities call for total confidentiality.

Gambling Den Busted

Commission members recently raided a gambling den in the Al-Harra Al-Gharbiya district of Madinah. Five Southeast Asian expatriates were arrested red-handed participating in an illegal lottery.

The commission members also seized several documents and a large sum of money that was being used in the illegal game. The arrested men were handed to police for further investigation.

Director of the commission’s Madinah branch Sheikh Fohaid Al-Oufi had earlier ordered a field team to collect evidence about the suspected crime following various tip-offs. The investigation team found people of a particular nationality frequenting the suspected building in large numbers carrying pieces of paper. It was then that commission members conducted a night raid arresting the suspects.

Some illegal agents of foreign-based gambling establishments operate in the Kingdom by collecting money from gamblers and then sending them to their foreign head-offices.

Sheikh Muhammad Al-Daajan, the commission’s deputy director in Madinah, appealed to people to report on such illegal activities in their neighborhood.