By IANS
Dubai : A week after a woman was detained by Saudi Arabia’s moral police for being in the company of an unrelated man in a public place, a human rights group in the country has sought an explanation about the incident.
The National Society for Human Rights (NSHR) has written to the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, seeking an explanation about the incident in which a commission member detained a 36-year-old Saudi woman for being with a Syrian colleague at a Starbucks café in Riyadh.
“The letter was sent on Monday,” NSHR vice-president Mufleh Al-Qahtani told the Arab News newspaper.
“We, at NSHR, follow a certain procedure in trying to get to the bottom of the whole story.”
Yara, a mother of three and business partner and financial consultant for a Jeddah-based company, had come to the Saudi capital Feb 4 to check on her firm’s new office.
As the office had problems with electricity supply, she decided to go for coffee at the café on the ground floor of the building with the Syrian, a senior financial analyst.
They sat in the family section of the café, the only section in Saudi Arabian restaurants where men and women can meet.
Shortly after they had their coffee and Yara opened her laptop, a commission member approached the duo and asked the Syrian to step outside. The commission man then came and informed Yara that she was being detained for being in company of a man who was not related to her.
She alleged that despite her telling the commission member that she was married, she was ordered to get into a taxi and her mobile phone was confiscated.
She was then taken to Malaz Prison in Riyadh where, she alleged, she was strip-searched and forced to sign two confessions.
Last year, Saudi Arabia’s Interior Ministry had issued a ruling that the commission cannot detain people and must hand them over to the police.
Later in the afternoon, Yara’s husband came to Riyadh from Jeddah on being informed about the incident and after some strings were pulled, she was released, according to media reports here.
The incident drew wide media attention here and abroad.
In its letter to the commission, the NSHR wanted to know why the commission member did not have a police escort while detaining the woman.
It also sought an explanation as to why the commission member had no identity badge and how he compelled the woman to get into a taxi. It has also asked why Yara was forced to fingerprint the confession and why the commission did not hand her over to the police in accordance to the Interior Ministry directive.
Al-Qahtani said that if the NSHR determines that the commission member violated the woman’s human rights, the group would then recommend that officials punish the member and ensure that such violations were not repeated.
Stating that Yara’s was not the only complaint it has received, he said: “We’ve received several complaints from nationals and foreign residents regarding the commission after the publication of our report on human rights in Saudi Arabia.”
He said that whenever it was proved that commission members had violated the law, the matter was brought to the attention of higher authorities.
The Saudi press had condemned the incident with columnists stating that it was a clear violation of human rights and calls for commission members to be held accountable for their actions.