Rash of Death and Injuries in Religious Police Interrogation Centers

The “Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice” is an exclusive Saudi government agency staffed with devious, excessively aggressive men known as Matawein, domesticators, or religious police. These men are hired and trained by the Saudi government, and they are authorized to intrude into every aspect of people’s lives to ensure religious laws and customs are enforced. Their authority is unlimited and their actions are rarely questioned. Their recurrently unjustified actions often have terrible effects on the Saudi people, as will be demonstrated by the articles in this newsletter.

The Matawein are trained in extremist “Wahhabi” doctrine, a reversionary brand of Islam known as Salafi. They are taught to believe that all forms of joyous entertainment are diversions created by infidels to lead Muslims away from the “Straight Path.” For them, women are subhuman beings, objects to be abused at the whim of the Matawein. As such, they are the property of men from conception until death. Cultural innovations- the empowerment of the individual and the acceptance of modern conveniences produced by “non-believers”- are evils that could divert people’s attention from focusing totally on religion and the king.

The Commission is controlled by and accountable solely to the unpopular Saudi Minister of Interior, Prince Naif. Naif, however, values the security of his royal family more highly than the physical security of the twenty-seven million Saudi citizens. The Matawein are thus the Saudi equivalent of the Orwellian “Big Brother”- omnipresent and meting out excessively harsh punishments- while at the same time justifying its very existence by carrying out its acts of coercion. For Naif, the fate of the Matawein and the fate of his autocratic family are intertwined: “The Kingdom is an Islamic country. Therefore, the Commission of Virtue Promotion and Vice Prevention will be present as long as Islam is present on the earth. The promotion of virtue and prevention of vice, in accordance with the Quran and Sunnah, is a major pillar of any Islamic country.” 18/05/2003

The royal family uses the Matawein to ensure the people are totally submissive to the king and his family, dependent on government handouts, and focused on religion as their sole identity. The royal family ostensibly tells the West a tale of the Matawein’s virtues: a hybrid moral and religious police which punishes the Saudi people only when they transgress the boundaries of the country’s moral, political, social and religious laws which are not applied to the royal family. Those mindful of reality, however, realize that the only purpose the Matawein serve is the security and monopoly of the royal family. Should individuals of the Matawein fail in their duty to protect the royal family, they would face the same fate of those unfortunate enough to incur the fury of these government zealot agents, as witnessed by the following accounts.

More Religious Police Violent Actions

Director’s Comment: The Saudi religious police stormed a home in search of a man who allegedly was selling alcohol. The man was viciously attacked in front of his family by agents of the government’s “Commission for the Promoter of Virtue and Prevention of Vice” agency. He died upon his arrival at the hospital because of excessive bleeding caused by the severe beatings by the religious police. As is the case in similar authorized actions by the religious police, “Authorities are investigating a case of murder involving an alleged forced entry into a house and the beating to death of a citizen by members of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. The deceased has been identified as Sulaiman Al-Huraisi, 28. He is survived by his wife and an eight-year-old child.”
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Arrest and Death

Director’s Comment: A family driver, “50-year-old Ahmed ibn Mussalam Al-Bulawi”, was spotted driving a woman by the Saudi religious police in early June; consequently, the man was arrested and taken to one of the religious police interrogation centers where he died. According to Saudi laws, women are prohibited from driving or riding with non-relative males even if she is being driven to an emergency room. In this case, the driver happened to be employed by the family to drive women, since they are denied the right to drive. Like other deadly incidents in this special mailing, an investigation is being ordered and like previous occasions, it’s more likely than not that the result would remain unknown or a statement by the government would be issued to say the proper actions against the perpetrators have been taken. In rare occasions the religious agents are tried by religious judge s who endorse the religious police’s actions in the first place.
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Woman Jumped out of Her Apartment to avoid Arrest by Religious Police

Director’s Comment: On June 1, 2007, members of the Saudi government’s religious police stormed an apartment looking for people accused of improper dress code and other unclear social misconduct. A frightened expatriate woman jumped from her fourth floor apartment building to avoid the involuntary trip to one of the many notorious religious police interrogation centers where she could be beaten, imprisoned and deported. The woman was severely injured and was taken to a hospital where she told the doctors about her misfortune. The hospital officials informed the regular police who in turn informed the office of the Governor of the region, Prince Khalid Al-Faisal. The prince played the role of a good cop and ordered a formation of different agencies to investigate the tragedy. No one expects the investigation to accuse the religious police of any wrong doing, because they only follow o rders from their equally loathed handler, Interior Minister Prince Naif.
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Religious Police, No Need for Proof

Director’s Comment: Two brothers drove from Eastern Saudi Arabia to attend their sister’s wedding in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, earlier this month, but instead found themselves victims of the ruthless Saudi religious police. For unexplained reasons, the brothers were thought to have a young woman in the car and in possession of alcohol, which is illegal in Saudi Arabia. They were chased by the religious police, normally in unmarked SUVs, caused the brothers’ car to crash and discovered that there was no woman or alcohol. The brothers were arrested and taken to one of the religious police’s dreaded interrogation centers. The brothers’ family learned about their sons’ unpleasant news from another brother who saw the crashed car abandoned on the road. He called his father and when members of the family arrived at the damaged car location, they were told the brothers were taken by the r eligious police.
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