RIYADH, 15 July 2007 — In a strongly worded message to the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, the Ministry of Interior has instructed commission members to strictly abide by the law and hand suspects immediately over to the custody of police.
All field commission members must “immediately surrender any apprehended person to local police authorities.”
Commission members are forbidden from taking any arrested person to their centers either for interrogation or detention and processing. The statement said that commission members who fail to comply with these directives would be “immediately dismissed.”
The ministry’s communication comes after a July 1 royal directive stating that commission field members must abide by a 1982 order that they have no authority to detain or process suspects, an order that has been ignored over the years. Some recent high-profile incidents involving alleged maltreatment of suspects has reignited the issue.
An Interior Ministry statement provided to Arab News said that recent violations of procedure (the commission acting as police officers, arresting suspects and transferring them to detention cells in commission centers) have had “drastic results.”
In one incident, Salman Al-Huraisi, a 28-year-old Saudi, died while in custody in May. He was arrested under accusations of selling and consuming alcohol. An autopsy report said he died with a blow to the head that was so hard one of his eyes came out.
The Interior Ministry statement also said that complaints from the public have increased about people being detained and taken to commission centers. The directive has been sent to local governorates of the Kingdom, the president of the commission, and the president of the General Investigation and Prosecution Authority (GIPA), the Kingdom’s equivalent of an attorney general’s office.
The GIPA has been given the responsibility of making surprise inspections of commission centers to ensure that no person is being detained or interrogated there. The government body will also have the responsibility of reporting any violations to the Interior Ministry.
Commission members often patrol malls or other public areas keeping an eye out for moral violations, such as women not dressed in accordance with Islamic code (which can vary between enforcing niqab, the face veil, or hijab, depending on the discretion of the local commission or even an individual commission officer). The commission also maintains vigilance on harassment of women by men. A police escort often (but not always) accompanies commission members.
Commission officers do not always have or show proof that they are affiliated with the commission, which caused in one high-profile case a woman to believe militants had kidnapped her. Commission members play an important role in rooting out illegal alcohol distribution and production gangs.
Opinions in Saudi society regarding the commission vary from condemnation to support, but most Saudis seem to agree on a basic framework for proper conduct on the part of the commission.
Despite the investigation announced over several weeks ago, the case of Al-Huraisi has still not been transferred to a religious court for a trial.
According to the attorney representing the family of the deceased, GIPA officials are still refusing to hand over to them a copy of the autopsy report indicating that the suspect was beaten severely.
Released family members claim that there are still four suspects in custody (who were also arrested along with Al-Huraisi) who are being pressured to sign confessions and drop charges against the commission.
One of the detained family members is a woman — the wife of the dead man’s brother. “They are trying to get family members to testify against one another,” Abu Fahd, the deceased man’s cousin said.
Another family member said that commission members were offering bribes to the family to drop charges against the commission. “They are now offering each family member a car and a house of his own,” Ali Al-Huraisi, one of the deceased’s brothers, told Arab News. He said that commission members also tried to use mediators to try to convince Al-Huraisi’s father to drop charges. The father has not succumbed to the pressure yet.
Another case involves the death of Ahmed Al-Bulawi, a retired border patrol guard who was wrongfully arrested after a part time member spotted him picking up a woman in his car near an amusement park in Tabuk. It was later established that the man worked as a driver for the woman’s family and used to drive family members on errands to earn extra cash to support his family. While at the commission center, the man collapsed and died. An official medical report had cleared commission members from being responsible for his death. However, four commission members are now standing trial for alleged mistakes during the detention as well as the violation of private rights of the deceased family.
Al-Bulawi’s family is demanding execution of the person responsible for the death of their kin. They claim their relative’s health was fine when he was arrested and that he returned to them in a body bag.
A third case involves a 50-year-old Saudi woman who is suing the commission in the Court of Grievances for tarnishing her reputation and causing her emotional and financial damage.
