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Saudi Arabian judge has upheld a sentence of a month in prison and 50
lashes for a businesswoman convicted of insulting members of the
morality police during an argument, the local al-Medina newspaper reported on Sunday.
Incidents of heavy-handed behavior by
the morality police have come under growing criticism on social media
from inside the kingdom in recent years, straining relations between
Saudi citizens and the official body.
The appeals court in Mecca upheld the
sentence, passed by a district court in Jeddah, after the woman was
found guilty of “cursing the morality police” and calling them “liars”,
the Arabic-language daily reported.
It said the patrol had entered her cafe
to check there were no breaches of morality or other laws in the
conservative Muslim kingdom, and that some of her employees had then run
away because they were breaking immigration rules.
The morality police, formally called the
Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, was
set up in 1926 to monitor public behavior in Saudi Arabia, which follows
the strict Wahhabi school of Sunni Islam.
It patrols streets and other public
spaces such as shopping malls enforcing strict dress codes and 30-minute
store closures during Islam’s noon, afternoon, sunset and evening
prayers.
In 2012 King Abdullah sacked the head of
the religious police after a series of controversies including footage
of members harassing families in a shopping mall going viral online and
fatal crashes after patrols engaged in car chases with suspects.
The new head, Sheikh Abdulatif Al
al-Sheikh, has publicly pushed a more conciliatory approach, talking
about training sessions for the morality police to ensure they are
politer and do not exceed their legal powers.
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