Members of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (Haia) have been instructed to refrain from inspecting the mobile phone content of individuals who are not directly involved in moral or criminal offenses, saying that this goes against the privacy code of Islamic teachings and civil punitive procedures.

The instruction came in a memo signed by Haia chief Sheikh Abdullatif Al-Asheikh in response to complaints from members of the public, who say that Haia members routinely stop people at malls.

“Islamic Shariah maintains personal privacy as supreme and prohibits any cause for infringement or harm in any form,” the memo read. “People’s privacy and their legal personal freedoms are protected by Shariah and Saudi law,” it added.