MAKKAH, 1 March 2008 — The case of Yara, the businesswomen who was arrested by the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice on Feb. 4 for sitting with a male colleague at Starbucks, has caused other businesswomen to be concerned about whether they will end up in the same predicament.
“Promoting virtue should not be happening this way,” said Lamia Al-Atas, who holds a Ph.D in psychology. “It should be done in a kind way without threats or instilling fear. Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) promoted treating women kindly.”
Latifa Sandy, a businesswoman in Jeddah and a friend of Yara, said that the actions of the commission members involved are inexcusable. “We are not against the commission or Islamic law, but we are against the way she was treated. They caused her a scandal by publicly insulting her, even from across the street, which was very crowded, when she was being detained. People were gathering around when they heard a woman scared and crying in a well-known coffee shop. Some took pictures of her.”
Yara’s husband Hatim provided more details about his wife. Yara grew up in the US to Jordanian parents and moved to Saudi Arabia eight years ago. They now have three children: Sarah, 14, Rayan, 7, and Rakan 3.
“She has had Saudi nationality for eight years when we came back from America,” said Hatim. “She is now a main partner in The Financial Investment Company and considered to be the fifth licensed Saudi woman business executive in the Kingdom. She was preparing to establish a new office in Riyadh (at the time of her arrest) and that required her to travel about three times every week. I do not have the time to accompany her each time.”
Hatim is referring to the Saudi law that requires women to travel with their legal male guardian. While women must typically have their guardian with them at all times, this requirement is not uniformly enforced due to the logistical impossibility of the mahram (the “guardian”, who is usually a close male relative) being able to accompany a woman everywhere she goes in public.
In fact, it is common to see women traveling without their male guardians, even hailing taxis and entering vehicles driven by unrelated men.
According to Al-Nadwa daily, Yara’s arrest has other women in Saudi Arabia worried about the chances of them enduring the same humiliation, which allegedly involved a forced confession, hours of detention without permission to contact family, a prison strip search, and verbal condemnation from an anonymous judge holding an assumption of guilt against an innocent woman.
Hatim said that his wife is still suffering a psychological trauma due to the bad treatment of the commission members. They also forced her to sign a confession that she didn’t even understand it because of her poor Arabic language skills. The commission members, says Hatim, threatened to send her to jail if she didn’t fingerprint a confession that said she admits to any charges pressed against her by the commission.
Yara told Al-Nadwa that the commission members charged her with wearing makeup, not covering her hair and “moving suspiciously” while sitting with an unrelated man.
Saleh ibn Humaid Al-Ghamdy, head of religious edict office in Riyadh, said that the acts of individual commission members should not be used to impugn the entire organization, which is managed by the General Presidency of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice. Al-Ghamdy suggests that if any commission member is found guilty of violating the law he would be punished.
“I wish Yara could hold on; God would reward her according faith and strength. I advise her to be patient and I urge commission men to be more wise and kind with people,” he said.
