An academic in Makkah has been sentenced to eight months in prison and 180 lashes. The crime? He was found sitting in café with a girl who was unrelated to him. Therefore, he was to be punished for being alone with the girl in what the court called “khulwa”. This case comes straight after that of the businesswoman who was arrested for having coffee with a colleague in a café in Riyadh. These are not the only stories of the kind. Nor will they be the last. But, as it happens, they have been reported widely in the local and international press.
The circumstances around those two incidents are almost similar: Two people were arrested in a public place and charged with violating the law by being together in an enclosed place, which implied immoral behavior.
As newspapers covered the stories, especially the first one, there was a considerable amount of sympathy for the woman and criticism of the actions of the Commission for the Protection of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. The commission then hit back with a detailed report denouncing the businesswoman in the first incident, and describing her attitude as unacceptable and as a violation of the country’s law. The commission detailed some of the offenses the woman was alleged to have committed. First, the reports says, she traveled from Jeddah to Riyadh without a male guardian. Second, she works in a mixed environment which, the commission says, violates the rules set by the Ministry of Labor. Third, the two sat in the family section of the coffee shop which, the commission stresses, is for “families and close relatives”.
The case of the academic, of course, shares the third charge, but in general, is as punishable as the first case.
Now the commission has to face the fact that the Saudi law does not prevent women from traveling alone provided they have written permission from their legal guardians, So, the charge in this case does not stand, unless the commission is going to introduce a new law.
The idea that the family section is only for families and close relatives is simply patronizing. Many people meet their friends and guests there. So it is really hard to draw a line here, unless people are required to present a list of everyone in their group as they go into restaurants or cafes and, maybe, stop meeting their friends and acquaintances in public places.
What remains is the concept of segregated workplace. And even if the commission does not know of it, there is mixing in the work place. Hospitals, for example, are mixed and so are many private and foreign establishments.
The idea of Khulwa seems to be the main issue here, and the definition of it is seriously loose here. What is Khulwa, one might ask. It is, by definition, the presence of a man and a woman in an enclosed space. It is objectionable as it leads to temptation. Now that concept, which is simple, has been stretched to make that enclosed space to include a table in a coffee shop, or a car, or even a pavement on the street. The word “Khulwa” loses its significance if more people are involved, and in the two cases at hand, the incidents obviously happened in coffee shops, which are public and open spaces. So how does that constitute a crime?
Obviously, these latest arrests suggest a backlash, a resistance against the public concerns over the blunders of the commission’s members. It also suggests a dichotomy between the way society is moving and the laws the commission wants to impose. Judgment aside, the problem is simply between two sides fighting for its territory: People want to enjoy their freedom more and more, and the commission sees in that an immoral parade. We have to watch how that fight develops. By all signs, it is going to be a long fight and may claim many victims.
