JEDDAH: The aunt of a girl arrested by the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice last weekend in a Madinah mall has denied allegations that the girl’s relatives attacked commission members, as claimed by the commission in a statement to the press on Friday.
The aunt, who requested her name not published, denied allegations that she and her relatives attacked commission members. She also denied her niece was accompanied by an unrelated young man and that they verbally abused commission members.
Speaking to Arab News on the phone, the woman said: “Where is the young man? This happened in a public place, and there were cameras everywhere. Why don’t they check them?”
The woman said the girl’s mother is feeling unwell as a result of the brouhaha and is under medication. She added that the issue has affected the entire family and that her niece is now unable to return to study.
In a statement to the press, the commission claimed its members were attacked at a shopping mall and that they stormed a commission office in the mall, threw documents around, and took pictures of the incident on their mobile phones. The commission claimed the women began causing havoc after the arrest of an unrelated young couple.
The aunt said that the girl, who is 19, had gone to the mall with other family members to buy food and that she was veiled. She added that while there, another member of the family came and told other family members that a man was pulling at the girl’s handbag in a different part of the mall.
When the family came to the scene they saw three men with the girl who claimed they were commission members. “They were not accompanied by policemen nor did they wear badges indicating that they were commission members,” she said. “They had no respect for us as a family.”
She denied the commission’s accusation that an uncle brought the girls into the mall and took photos of them. The girl was then taken to the commission’s office. Hearing about this, her grandmother, who is in her 60s, asked the commission members to let her into the office. When allowed in, she fell and suffered an injury to her head. The aunt accused a commission member of pushing the woman and causing the injury.
“Commission members then refused to allow us to take the grandmother unless the uncle signed some papers, the nature of which we did not know. As we refused, they became more aggressive. At this time I swore I would document the incident on my mobile phone,” she said.
One of them has a photo of a commission member attacking the family with a bottle, she said.
The grandmother was taken to hospital only after Red Crescent paramedics intervened saying her case was serious, she said.
She said after transferring the woman to hospital she and her relatives went to Al-Ayoun police to lodge a complaint.
