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Monday, October 06, 2008

Saudi Vice, episode 21: Marriage is no defense


Our heroes at the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice know well how devious sinners can be. Some unmarried couples who may want to spend time together alone - which is the grievous sin of khulwa - will pretend to be married in order to keep the virtuous vice police off their backs.

So it is simple Muttawa logic that any man and woman who are alone must be unmarried!

This is why the Commission dispatched one of their ubiquitous white SUVs to Al-Jurf, west of Medina, to chase a couple in a car who were acting suspiciously - by being alone with each other at 1 AM.

As the Arab News reports:
“As we were driving home, my husband and I realized we were being followed by three men in a car,” said the woman, who did not want her name published. “They were coming from both sides of the car and (at one point in the chase) were also in front of our car. I was afraid of having an accident. The whole scene looked just like something in a movie.”

She also said that because no police officer was accompanying the three members of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, her husband was afraid to stop. Eventually, the commission vehicle got in front of the car they were pursuing and forced the couple to stop, according to the woman.

Abdullah Al-Zahrani, the head of the Madinah branch of the commission, confirmed to Arab News yesterday that the commission was tailing the couple, but he maintains that the three commission members did not abuse the suspects. He also claims that the two are not married.

The woman is neither his wife nor his cousin,” said Al-Zahrani.

According to the woman, she and her husband had been visiting her husband’s family and decided to return home late at night.

After the two were pulled over, said the woman, “one of them pulled my arm and was shouting at me, telling me to get into their car. I was shocked. How could a man from the commission touch a woman when he is not her mahram (a woman’s legal male escort or guardian)? He ordered me to get into the commission car and said they would keep everything secret in order to protect my reputation.”

The commission considers unrelated men and women in cars to be committing the moral crime of khulwa.

The woman said that her husband objected to her treatment, and asked the men to take him in custody instead. At that point, the woman said an older man who happened to be passing by intervened and protested against the commission members touching a woman, “but the commission member told him that I had forced him to do so.”

The woman says that two of the commission members got into her husband’s car with her and accused her of being an immoral woman for being out late at night with an unrelated man. The members of the commission also said that the woman had committed a crime and that she therefore deserved to be punished.

“This is the first time I have seen anything like this,” she said. “The members refused to come to the police during the investigation and said that I had insulted them. I did no such thing; I simply told them over and over: ‘I swear to God that I am this man’s wife.’”

The woman said that after hearing what had happened, her brothers went to the commission branch in Al-Jurf, furious and telling the commission members to stay away from their sister.

She said a commission member then hit one of her brothers and broke his nose.

“My brother became unconscious and an ambulance came and took him to the hospital,” she said.

Stupid unmarried woman! Doesn't she realize that the Commission is allowed to break Islamic law in order to uphold Islamic law?

It would be outrageous to think that Muttawa members go into that profession because they are a bunch of perverts who want to project their own desires and actions on others. Injuring, lying, khulwa, touching women - all are perfectly allowed for Commission members in their zeal to stop others from khulwa and touching women.

Our heroes have prevented another moral crime, and Saudi Arabia is a better place today because of their love of Sharia.