Saudi woman beats up virtue cop

JP ^ | 5-20-10 | Ben Joffe

[Mikey_1962]

When a Saudi religious policeman sauntered about an amusement park in the eastern Saudi Arabian city of Al-Mubarraz looking for unmarried couples illegally socializing, he probably wasn’t expecting much opposition.

But when he approached a young, 20-something couple meandering through the park together, he received an unprecedented whooping.

A member of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, the Saudi religious police known locally as the Hai’a, asked the couple to confirm their identities and relationship to one another, as it is a crime in Saudi Arabia for unmarried men and women to mix.

For unknown reasons, the young man collapsed upon being questioned by the cop.

According to the Saudi daily Okaz, the woman then allegedly laid into the religious policeman, punching him repeatedly, and leaving him to be taken to the hospital with bruises across his body and face.

“To see resistance from a woman means a lot,” Wajiha Al-Huwaidar, a Saudi women’s rights activist, told The Media Line news agency. “People are fed up with these religious police, and now they have to pay the price for the humiliation they put people through for years and years. This is just the beginning and there will be more resistance.”

“The media and the Internet have given people a lot of power and the freedom to express their anger,” she said. “The Hai’a are like a militia, but now whenever they do something it’s all over the Internet. This gives them a horrible reputation and gives people power to react.”

Neither the religious police nor the Eastern Province police has made a statement on the incident, and both the names of the couple and the date of the incident have not been made public, but on Monday the incident was all over the Saudi media.

[null and void]

ping

[Ready4Freddy]

The Saud/Wahhabi connection dates to the 1800’s, iirc. That’s how the leaders who got to play with the Brits got in the position they were in during and after WWI.

[Retired Greyhound]

Here is the police lineup. "Can you identify the guilty woman?"

[Skepolitic]

Wow, it takes a brave and fiesty (or drunk and impulsive) woman to assault a cop anywhere, but I imagine that a female assault on a muttawah in Saudi Arabia is unprecedented. These guys aren’t necessarily physically powerful, but they have the full authority of a totalitarian state.

[Old Student]

“Saudi “religious police” are cowardly slime, and probably got into their foul job as a method of sublimating their repressed longings to bugger each other, small children, and/or camels.”

I see you respect them nearly as much as I do. I’d make only one correction to your post: “as a method of sublimating their repressed longings” should read “to enable them”

[PA Engineer]

Love it (sadly though she is in a great deal of trouble).

When I was working in Saudi I was heading out to the southern fields one morning and happened upon a young Bedouin with a flat tire on a "white toyota" pickup truck. I stopped and drove him to a little shanty town for repairs. Oddly he introduced me to another Bedouin who owned a vulcanizing operation in a plywood shack. He fixed the tire and the young man directed me to the only gas station. He bought a few cans of "zit". This was a popular soda with poor western marketing.

This was during Ramadan and he handed me a can to drink on the way back. I mentioned the Mutawa. During the entire time we were together he never once spoke and just kept pointing. In perfect english and gesturing with his hand across the Khurais dunes; "Mutawa here are dead Mutawa. Big Desert". I laughed and began drinking the soda.

Saudi Arabia is definitely a land of many contradictions.

[Old Student]

“I really don’t know how many sensible Americans are still left in this country.”

I think there may still two or three of us, right here at Free Republic. ;)

[PA Engineer]

I spent Desert Shield/Desert Storm in Riyadh, and absolutely detest the Mutawin(which is what the religious police are called there).

We use to just call them nose pickers for short.

[1951Boomer]

Yeah, he wanted to engage in voyeurism, but perhaps she opened up a can of PMS on him.

[Sunshine Sister]

You got that right. Good for the woman. Wonder where she learned to fight?

[1951Boomer]

ME Muslim men are so hypocritical it’s not even funny. I lived in the ME for two years. Even though I was in my 40s and dressed in modest, loose clothing as I conducted myself like a lady at all times, I was still propositioned several times. It was quite humiliating. I whipped out a picture of my husband and children, and that usually got the message across. Or else I just made a quick getaway. Bottom line is that the religion was started BY men FOR men. It operates in a way for men to have their cake and eat it too.

[Proud_USA_Republican]

They are the same ones who beat young girls as they tried to escape their school that was on fire because they didn’t take the time to find their head to toe burkas and put them on. While the beatings were going on, they actually tried to push them back into the building.
They actually stopped men who tried to help the girls and warned, “It is sinful to approach them.”
15 girls died because of this.
The mutaween are the scum of the earth.

[353FMG]

Don’t even think about it — they are all hard-core Muslims. Cannot be trusted with matters pertaining to the security of non-Muslims.

[ScottinVA]

I recall that one strategem used in WWII was to drop "Liberator" pistols over occupied Europe. They were cheap little things, only good for one shot each -- but if a Resistance member made that shot count, he would then "inherit" a better weapon from a German soldier.

I think something like that could happen in Saudi, and women could pull it off; there's a lot that can be hidden under an abaya.

[Old Student]

“The mutaween are the scum of the earth.”

If you're trying to provoke an argument with me, you're going to fail. OK, maybe I will argue with you: No, they aren't scum. Scum is a higher form of life than the Mutawin.

If I'd had a daughter at that school (and I thought seriously of working in the KSA when I was preparing to retire from the USAF, so could have) there would be dead mutawin all over the place after that incident.