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July 17, 2006

Saudi Arabia: Muslim Morality Police Cause Women To Lose Jobs

The Saudi religious policemen, or Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice have struck again, and their latest victims are 69 women who work at a chain of cosmetics and perfumes stores in Jeddah, states Arab News.

The religious policemen, called mutawi, muttawa or mutawi'oon, are renowned for their intolerance and stupidity. Last month, they arrested a 70 year old disabled woman merely because she walked into a shop where there was only one male storekeeper present.

Their worst abuse of power happened on March 11 2002 at Mecca, where a fire broke out in a girl's dormitory. The girls tried to escape the burning dormitory, but because they were not wearing appropriate Islamic attire, the muttawa beat them back into the flames, using sticks. They also prevented fireman from attempting a rescue. As a result of their inhumanity, 15 girls died.

On May 24 we reported that Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef announced that the mutawi would no longer have powers to detain suspects for hours, in their notorious "harassment" cases. That did not stop them accusing the 70 year old woman of being in "unlawful seclusion" with a male and carting her off to a women's prison.

So today's news is hardly surprising. The women worked for the beauty chain called Gazzaz. The religious police announced in an official statement that it had not been responsible for the 69 women losing their jobs. They said that all they had done was to write down their observations of the women's employment in the stores. The statement admitted that members had described the women as displaying themselves "in an immodest way" in front of men.

Reem Hasan, a worker at one of Gazzaz's stores, said: "The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice came to our shop once. We were wearing Islamic clothes and did not have any makeup on us despite the fact we work in a cosmetic shop. We did not look indecent as they claim and we definitely did not deserve to lose our jobs."

A senior member of Gazzaz said that women had been employed complying with the Labor Ministry directives. He said: "The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice made a surprise visit at one of our branch shops. All women were in Hijab and were wearing decent clothes. But the commission issued a decision ordering us to close down our shops within three days. When we objected they said either we close down the shops or they will settle the matter by taking all the girls by force to their cars."

The man said that Ministry of Labor was investigating the case. Another source from Gazzaz said that muttawi were against the notion of women working in beauty shops. During the first three months of a woman's employment, she is supervised by a male, which is regarded as gender mixing. The person said: "They said that they were looking immodest. I do not know whether they mean the workers or the pictures of women on the walls. From what I know problems started when we fired two women who reported to the commission that there were bad things happening at our stores."

This person said it was unfair to make 69 people lose their jobs because of two women. He claimed: "These women were serious about work; they loved their job and were more religious than the men."

With all this fuss about gender mixing, it is no surprise that gay parties are becoming a common, though clandestine, occurrence in the kingdom. And as we reported earlier, Saudi Arabia is the country with the second highest amount of Google internet searches for gay sex and has the highest number of searches for ass sex. It's a dirty job, but someone's got to do it, if only to give the dogs a day off.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at July 17, 2006 5:41 PM

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