Word: mutaween
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...Huraisi and al-Bulawi hit the newspapers, Saudis were shocked, yet not entirely surprised. The morality police, whom Saudis sometimes derisively refer to as the "Taliban," are notorious for committing excesses in their fervor for enforcing the Kingdom's puritanical Wahhabi brand of Islam. Typically, squads of mutaween patrol streets and shopping malls, caning shopkeepers who fail to shutter their doors at prayer time, scolding women who allow flesh to show from under their mandatory black gowns, and lecturing adolescent boys caught following or talking to girls. By the commission's reckoning, its members "correct" the behavior...
Frequently, however, the mutaween have gone further: from barring shops from selling roses and teddy bears on Valentine's Day to verbally abusing, physically assaulting or effectively abducting women deemed to be committing sins. Some Saudis, only half jokingly, refer to the mutaween's behavior as "state-sponsored terrorism," on account of the fear that their combination of religious intolerance and violence inspires...
...backlash against the mutaween began with the case of Umm Faisal (her full name hasn't been made public), a 50-year-old Riyadh woman who endured a harrowing evening at the hands of some mutaween after arriving in her car at an amusement park to pick up her sons one night four years ago. Accusing her of indecency, two commission members allegedly ejected her driver, took Umm Faisal, her daughter and an Indonesian maid on a wild ride and eventually crashed her car. Outraged by her treatment, Umm Faisal sued, seeking compensation for damage...
...Faisal's defiant, one-woman stand is helping spur the unusual public debate about the mutaween's role and actions. Saudi newspapers and blog sites have been filled with reports and commentaries on the subject. A campaign using text messages sent to mobile phones is calling on a million Saudis to declare that "2007 is the year of liberation" from the mutaween. Apparently responding to the discontent, the Shura Council, a quasi-legislative body that advises the monarchy, recently rejected requests to give the commission a 20% pay raise for its members and funds to open additional offices around...
Some of the discontent has been unruly. Last year, according to Saudi Arabia's al-Watan newspaper, there were 21 recorded instances - including a number of shootings and stabbings - in which people attacked mutaween. Just four years ago, the government pressured al-Watan to fire its editor after it published articles criticizing the Wahhabi establishment and holding the mutaween accountable for alleged abuses. Nonetheless, others are speaking up, too, and the outcry is intensifying the pressure on King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud to act against the mutaween. A new nongovernmental organization, the National Society for Human Rights, issued...