Yousuf Muhammad | Arab News
MADINAH: A group of three women attacked members of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice at a commission office in a commercial center in Madinah.
Details of the attack were mentioned in a commission statement issued on Friday. The statement said the women stormed the office, threw papers and documents around, and took pictures of the incident on their mobile phones. The names of the women and the commercial center have not been revealed, nor have details of when the incident took place.
The statement said that an unrelated young couple was arrested walking together in the commercial center and taken to the commission office. A woman later came to the office claiming she was a relative of the arrested woman. Commission members advised the woman that procedures would be completed and that the young woman’s identity would not be revealed. The woman, however, refused to leave and began screaming and attacking a commission member. The statement said that a young man then came to the office and claimed he was a relative of the girl. It was then that the three women barged into the office and blasted commission members.
According to the statement, one of the three women started taking pictures with her mobile phone and threatened to send the pictures to newspapers. One of the three, an elderly woman, asked her to remain calm but she continued to scream and utter expletives. The old woman then fell on the floor and injured her head. The commission called the police and the Red Crescent. However, the injured woman refused to get into an ambulance. The screaming and chaos also led to a huge gathering, allowing the young couple to escape.
The statement said two men also entered the office and attacked commission members and that a girl came and took pictures. Police then cleared the office and took those involved to Al-Ayoun Police Station. The statement urged people not to intervene in such cases and avoid creating chaos.
Showing posts with label religious police. Show all posts
Showing posts with label religious police. Show all posts
Monday, April 6, 2009
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Saudi Arabia: Serial actors, actress detained by religious police in Riyadh
By Abdul Rahman Shaheen, Correspondent
Published: March 31, 2009, 18:29
Riyadh: In an early hour swoop on a famous hotel in Riyadh City, members of the Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (religious police) have taken into custody a number of artists and other members of the production unit of a television serial.
Those incustody included three actors and one actress who were then handed over to the local police. Later, they were released on bail.
Acting on a tip-off, a religious police squad raided the location of the serial on the lobby of the hotel in the eastern part of the city on Monday early morning.
The artists were engaged in shooting an episode of the serial "Ayyamu Al Surab" (Days of Surab), produced by Al Sadaf Company.
According to Al Watan Arabic daily, those who have been taken into custody included the noted Omani actor Ebrahim Al Zidjali, artists Ali Saad and Fawaz Al Jaser and the actress Sahar.
Religious policemen took them to the Commission’s nearby Omar bin Al Khattab branch office and then handed them over to the police.
According to sources at the production unit of the serial, religious policemen have taken the team members into custody accusing gender-mixing of male and female artists at the hotel lobby.
They said that the actress Sahar was detained for some time at the reform centre of the Commission where she underwent guidance classes by a group of women officials about dangers of mixing with men at public places.
Immediately after the incident, the remaining members of the production team vacated the hotel premises.
Later, sources at Al Manar police station confirmed the report and said that the detained artists were released on bail. When contacted by reporters, the religious police sources refused to comment on the incident.
Reaction
Reacting to the incident, which made almost all the members of the production team dumbfounded, the Omani actor Ebrahim Al Zidjali wondered whether film shooting is a taboo in the Kingdom even though the official television channels air several serials, whose shooting take place at public places with the permission of the civilian and security authorities.
He also drew attention to the recently concluded Janadriya festival where King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz honoured a number of Saudi artists.
Published: March 31, 2009, 18:29
Riyadh: In an early hour swoop on a famous hotel in Riyadh City, members of the Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (religious police) have taken into custody a number of artists and other members of the production unit of a television serial.
Those incustody included three actors and one actress who were then handed over to the local police. Later, they were released on bail.
Acting on a tip-off, a religious police squad raided the location of the serial on the lobby of the hotel in the eastern part of the city on Monday early morning.
The artists were engaged in shooting an episode of the serial "Ayyamu Al Surab" (Days of Surab), produced by Al Sadaf Company.
According to Al Watan Arabic daily, those who have been taken into custody included the noted Omani actor Ebrahim Al Zidjali, artists Ali Saad and Fawaz Al Jaser and the actress Sahar.
Religious policemen took them to the Commission’s nearby Omar bin Al Khattab branch office and then handed them over to the police.
According to sources at the production unit of the serial, religious policemen have taken the team members into custody accusing gender-mixing of male and female artists at the hotel lobby.
They said that the actress Sahar was detained for some time at the reform centre of the Commission where she underwent guidance classes by a group of women officials about dangers of mixing with men at public places.
Immediately after the incident, the remaining members of the production team vacated the hotel premises.
Later, sources at Al Manar police station confirmed the report and said that the detained artists were released on bail. When contacted by reporters, the religious police sources refused to comment on the incident.
Reaction
Reacting to the incident, which made almost all the members of the production team dumbfounded, the Omani actor Ebrahim Al Zidjali wondered whether film shooting is a taboo in the Kingdom even though the official television channels air several serials, whose shooting take place at public places with the permission of the civilian and security authorities.
He also drew attention to the recently concluded Janadriya festival where King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz honoured a number of Saudi artists.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Saudi Arabia: Khulwa sentence against elderly widow causes uproar
Badea Abu Al-Naja | Arab News
JEDDAH: The sentencing of a 75-year-old Arab widow to 40 lashes and four months in prison for mingling with two young men, who were reportedly bringing her bread, has sparked fresh criticism of the Kingdom’s judiciary and the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice.
Khamisa Sawadi, a Syrian who was married to a Saudi, was convicted and sentenced last week for meeting men who were not her immediate relatives. The two men, including one who was Sawadi’s late husband’s nephew, were also found guilty and sentenced to prison and lashes.
The woman’s lawyer, Abdul Rahman Al-Lahem, said he plans to appeal the verdict, which also demands Sawadi be deported after serving her prison term. He said his client has not served her sentence yet.
Arab News tried to contact police and the commission officials in Hail, but both refused to give further details about the case.
Fariyal King, a legal specialist, said Hail police had a responsibility to explain the case as they detained the two men on the request of officials from the commission. “The Interior Ministry has appointed spokesmen to clarify matters to the media. The Hail police spokesman’s refusal to give a statement shows that there is some sort of obscurity,” she said.
The elderly woman met the men last June after she asked one of them to bring her five loaves of bread, Al-Watan reported. The men — identified by Al-Watan as the nephew, Fahd Al-Anzi, and his friend and business partner, Hadiyan bin Zein — went to Sawadi’s home in the town of Al-Shamli. As they came out after delivering the bread, the two men were arrested by commission officials, Al-Watan said on Monday.
The court said it based its March 3 ruling on information from citizens and the testimony of Al-Anzi’s father, who accused Sawadi of corruption.
Sawadi had told the court that she considered Al-Anzi as her son, because she breast-fed him when he was a baby. But the court denied her claim, saying she had no evidence. In Islamic tradition, breast-feeding establishes a degree of maternal relation.
Sawadi commonly asked her neighbors for help after her husband died, said Saudi journalist Bandar Al-Ammar, who reported the story for Al-Watan.
Suleiman Al-Radhiman, director of the Hail office of the commission, told Al-Watan that his officials detained the woman after receiving a written message that two men had entered her house. “When our patrol team arrived at the site, they found two men coming from the woman’s house. We detained the two and handed them over to police for investigation,” he said.
He pointed out that police had arrested the woman on two previous occasions and a judge in Al-Shamli had convicted her. “The woman asked me to bring bread for her. At that time, I contacted my friend Hadyan who was incidentally passing and he helped me buy bread, as I did not have a car.
“After I gave her the bread two commission officials came. They first said they belonged to a charity and wanted to know the living condition of the woman. While we were going out they caught us and handed over to the police,” said Al-Anzi.
Bin Zein said the commission officials arrested them about 200 meters from the woman’s house. “There were six commission members who all had their faces covered,” he said.
Commenting on the case, lawyer Ibrahim Zamzami said if it was proved that the old woman is Al-Anzi’s foster mother through breast-feeding, then the charge of khulwa (illegal seclusion) would be nullified. But if his relation to her is only as his uncle’s wife then the charge would stand as she is eligible to marry him.
Zamzami, however, warned that the matter of illegal seclusion with an unrelated woman was difficult to prove. “This depends on the circumstances, the time spent together and the way they looked when they come out. The shorter the time spent together, the more likelihood of illegal seclusion,” he said.
The lawyer said a 75-year-old woman is usually not considered seductive yet she is a woman and unrelated men should not remain alone with her. He said court rulings in such cases are based on Shariah, which did not differentiate between old and young. “Old age is not a sufficient ground for acquittal,” he said.
Mohammed Nahar, another lawyer, said the two men were arrested on suspicion of committing a sin. “But in law an accused will be innocent as long as the charge is not proved,” he said.
JEDDAH: The sentencing of a 75-year-old Arab widow to 40 lashes and four months in prison for mingling with two young men, who were reportedly bringing her bread, has sparked fresh criticism of the Kingdom’s judiciary and the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice.
Khamisa Sawadi, a Syrian who was married to a Saudi, was convicted and sentenced last week for meeting men who were not her immediate relatives. The two men, including one who was Sawadi’s late husband’s nephew, were also found guilty and sentenced to prison and lashes.
The woman’s lawyer, Abdul Rahman Al-Lahem, said he plans to appeal the verdict, which also demands Sawadi be deported after serving her prison term. He said his client has not served her sentence yet.
Arab News tried to contact police and the commission officials in Hail, but both refused to give further details about the case.
Fariyal King, a legal specialist, said Hail police had a responsibility to explain the case as they detained the two men on the request of officials from the commission. “The Interior Ministry has appointed spokesmen to clarify matters to the media. The Hail police spokesman’s refusal to give a statement shows that there is some sort of obscurity,” she said.
The elderly woman met the men last June after she asked one of them to bring her five loaves of bread, Al-Watan reported. The men — identified by Al-Watan as the nephew, Fahd Al-Anzi, and his friend and business partner, Hadiyan bin Zein — went to Sawadi’s home in the town of Al-Shamli. As they came out after delivering the bread, the two men were arrested by commission officials, Al-Watan said on Monday.
The court said it based its March 3 ruling on information from citizens and the testimony of Al-Anzi’s father, who accused Sawadi of corruption.
Sawadi had told the court that she considered Al-Anzi as her son, because she breast-fed him when he was a baby. But the court denied her claim, saying she had no evidence. In Islamic tradition, breast-feeding establishes a degree of maternal relation.
Sawadi commonly asked her neighbors for help after her husband died, said Saudi journalist Bandar Al-Ammar, who reported the story for Al-Watan.
Suleiman Al-Radhiman, director of the Hail office of the commission, told Al-Watan that his officials detained the woman after receiving a written message that two men had entered her house. “When our patrol team arrived at the site, they found two men coming from the woman’s house. We detained the two and handed them over to police for investigation,” he said.
He pointed out that police had arrested the woman on two previous occasions and a judge in Al-Shamli had convicted her. “The woman asked me to bring bread for her. At that time, I contacted my friend Hadyan who was incidentally passing and he helped me buy bread, as I did not have a car.
“After I gave her the bread two commission officials came. They first said they belonged to a charity and wanted to know the living condition of the woman. While we were going out they caught us and handed over to the police,” said Al-Anzi.
Bin Zein said the commission officials arrested them about 200 meters from the woman’s house. “There were six commission members who all had their faces covered,” he said.
Commenting on the case, lawyer Ibrahim Zamzami said if it was proved that the old woman is Al-Anzi’s foster mother through breast-feeding, then the charge of khulwa (illegal seclusion) would be nullified. But if his relation to her is only as his uncle’s wife then the charge would stand as she is eligible to marry him.
Zamzami, however, warned that the matter of illegal seclusion with an unrelated woman was difficult to prove. “This depends on the circumstances, the time spent together and the way they looked when they come out. The shorter the time spent together, the more likelihood of illegal seclusion,” he said.
The lawyer said a 75-year-old woman is usually not considered seductive yet she is a woman and unrelated men should not remain alone with her. He said court rulings in such cases are based on Shariah, which did not differentiate between old and young. “Old age is not a sufficient ground for acquittal,” he said.
Mohammed Nahar, another lawyer, said the two men were arrested on suspicion of committing a sin. “But in law an accused will be innocent as long as the charge is not proved,” he said.
Saudi Arabia: Frustrating experience
Walaa Hawari & Shiekha Al-Dosary | Arab News
RIYADH: Charms, tokens, enigmatic drawings and other items seized by the vice cops were displayed prominently in one of the largest booths at this year’s Riyadh International Book Fair. Instead of books, a television displayed how the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice reverses magical spells.
“What was in the commission’s booth showed clearly what they thought of the book fair and what they think of books,” one Saudi writer and intellectual told Arab News yesterday.
The book fair, which ends on Friday, has been marked with controversy once again — with liberal and literary minded people complaining of harassment by the commission. For their part, religious authorities have complained, not just about the mingling of men and women at the fair or how women are dressed, but also about how they claim their voices are being quelled by the visitors. Like last year, it was also often difficult to differentiate between official members of the commission and men who simply dress like them.
At one event featuring Saudi writer Abdu Khal, a man dressed in conservative Saudi attire (but with no identifying badge or other indication of legitimate authority) demanded that he be given the microphone.
“After 10 minutes of argument, we gave him the microphone whereupon he started an angry speech in which he accused the fair’s organizing committee of not giving equal opportunity to all,” said Abdu Khal.
An event dedicated to the literary work of Sudan’s Tayeb Salih descended into a debate over morals, interactions between men and women, and the relationship between Islam and literature in general.
The man asked Khal — a vocal critic of the commission — why prominent Saudi poets and literary people attacked conservative society by doing un-Islamic things: “Why can’t they be Muslim and literary at same time?” he asked the audience.
Many of those attending the event who had come to discuss literature and poetry confirmed the incident. Many expressed disapproval and narrated unpleasant incidents that took place at the fair.
“What happened will destroy the image of tolerance we have tried to maintain,” said Saudi writer and journalist Ruqaiyah Yaqub. “The fair respects all viewpoints and Islamic schools. However, some extremists took advantage of that and they took revenge as well.”
Yaqub, who wears a full veil, said that conservatives at the fair (it was impossible to tell if they were actual commission members or just conservatives) attacked her verbally for her tight-fitting abaya, demanding that she “thickly cover everything and wear decent clothes,” she added.
“It’s so ridiculous,” she scoffed. “I’m covering everything with my plain black Abaya and — I don’t know what they consider ‘decent’ — but I believe their main issue is the presence of women at the fair.”
Najet Mield, a representative of a French publishing house, said she was verbally harassed, too, for speaking to men who came to her booth to discuss the books her company sells.
“They questioned my respect for my religion by doing so, which is something they should be punished for doing,” she said angrily. “Women have sold products to men and vice versa since the time of the Prophet (pbuh). If these people knew history, they would know that.”
Mield said she’s a Dai’aa in France, which means she works to spread Islam. “I came a long the way to show my work and I came with an invitation from the Ministry (of Culture and Information),” she said.
After complaining to ministry officials at the fair, the government assigned Mield a minder by the name of Hassan Al-Ansary to accompany her to avoid future harassment.
In one of the more highly publicized incidents at the fair, Saudi writer Halemah Mozaffar was verbally accosted by men who identified themselves as commission members and accused her of immorality for not having her face covered and for signing books given to her by men — she had signed the books as the men had asked her to do so out of admiration for her work.
Halemah published the first academic book about Saudi theater this year. As the tradition of signing a book by the author was not unknown at previous book fairs in Riyadh, she arrived as arranged by the organizing committee. When she was preparing for her signing session, commission members and others were advising her to cover her face “even though it’s an issue where Islamic scholars have difference of opinion.”
“Still,” she added, “I thanked them for the advice and went on about my business, setting up the place where I would sign books.”
When men and women started to approach the stand, Halemah was stunned by the commission members sending away men and forming a human wall to prevent her from signing books for men or even talking to them.
“It was my surprise to find them waiting for me with a pre-intention to stop me from signing my book and even from talking to the crowd, among whom were my fellow writers and theater-specialist colleagues,” she said.
Even the women who wished to have a signed book, according to Halemah, were frightened away by the scene, as there were two commission members, five security guards and six soldiers present.
“The scene was humiliating, especially when some male writers who came to buy the book tried to get my signature on their copies, and were rudely pushed away.”
Halemah then signed the books she already had and tried to give them to some of her colleagues, but the commission members stood between them and ordered her to pass the book to the security guard, who would pass it on.
“His behavior with me was even more rude when I asked: ‘Isn’t the guard a man? Why is it acceptable for me to hand the book to a guard but not to the man who bought the book?’”
The worst happened, according to Halemah, when another prominent writer ‘thanked her after she signed his copy. “The commission member took him aside, scolding him for thanking me considering it an offense to address a woman even with a simple phrase such as ‘thank you,’” she added.
The two hours of continuous annoyance did not go unnoticed by the Ministry of Information and Culture, explained Halemah, “as they compensated me with another signing day according to my schedule,” a day that went smoothly regardless of the presence of commission members who demanded that men and women stand in separate lines. The commission members, she said, “were hovering around me, just waiting for me to commit what they considered a sin.”
Arab News tried to obtain comments from the commission members; they said they would not speak to women who didn’t wear full-face veils.
RIYADH: Charms, tokens, enigmatic drawings and other items seized by the vice cops were displayed prominently in one of the largest booths at this year’s Riyadh International Book Fair. Instead of books, a television displayed how the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice reverses magical spells.
“What was in the commission’s booth showed clearly what they thought of the book fair and what they think of books,” one Saudi writer and intellectual told Arab News yesterday.
The book fair, which ends on Friday, has been marked with controversy once again — with liberal and literary minded people complaining of harassment by the commission. For their part, religious authorities have complained, not just about the mingling of men and women at the fair or how women are dressed, but also about how they claim their voices are being quelled by the visitors. Like last year, it was also often difficult to differentiate between official members of the commission and men who simply dress like them.
At one event featuring Saudi writer Abdu Khal, a man dressed in conservative Saudi attire (but with no identifying badge or other indication of legitimate authority) demanded that he be given the microphone.
“After 10 minutes of argument, we gave him the microphone whereupon he started an angry speech in which he accused the fair’s organizing committee of not giving equal opportunity to all,” said Abdu Khal.
An event dedicated to the literary work of Sudan’s Tayeb Salih descended into a debate over morals, interactions between men and women, and the relationship between Islam and literature in general.
The man asked Khal — a vocal critic of the commission — why prominent Saudi poets and literary people attacked conservative society by doing un-Islamic things: “Why can’t they be Muslim and literary at same time?” he asked the audience.
Many of those attending the event who had come to discuss literature and poetry confirmed the incident. Many expressed disapproval and narrated unpleasant incidents that took place at the fair.
“What happened will destroy the image of tolerance we have tried to maintain,” said Saudi writer and journalist Ruqaiyah Yaqub. “The fair respects all viewpoints and Islamic schools. However, some extremists took advantage of that and they took revenge as well.”
Yaqub, who wears a full veil, said that conservatives at the fair (it was impossible to tell if they were actual commission members or just conservatives) attacked her verbally for her tight-fitting abaya, demanding that she “thickly cover everything and wear decent clothes,” she added.
“It’s so ridiculous,” she scoffed. “I’m covering everything with my plain black Abaya and — I don’t know what they consider ‘decent’ — but I believe their main issue is the presence of women at the fair.”
Najet Mield, a representative of a French publishing house, said she was verbally harassed, too, for speaking to men who came to her booth to discuss the books her company sells.
“They questioned my respect for my religion by doing so, which is something they should be punished for doing,” she said angrily. “Women have sold products to men and vice versa since the time of the Prophet (pbuh). If these people knew history, they would know that.”
Mield said she’s a Dai’aa in France, which means she works to spread Islam. “I came a long the way to show my work and I came with an invitation from the Ministry (of Culture and Information),” she said.
After complaining to ministry officials at the fair, the government assigned Mield a minder by the name of Hassan Al-Ansary to accompany her to avoid future harassment.
In one of the more highly publicized incidents at the fair, Saudi writer Halemah Mozaffar was verbally accosted by men who identified themselves as commission members and accused her of immorality for not having her face covered and for signing books given to her by men — she had signed the books as the men had asked her to do so out of admiration for her work.
Halemah published the first academic book about Saudi theater this year. As the tradition of signing a book by the author was not unknown at previous book fairs in Riyadh, she arrived as arranged by the organizing committee. When she was preparing for her signing session, commission members and others were advising her to cover her face “even though it’s an issue where Islamic scholars have difference of opinion.”
“Still,” she added, “I thanked them for the advice and went on about my business, setting up the place where I would sign books.”
When men and women started to approach the stand, Halemah was stunned by the commission members sending away men and forming a human wall to prevent her from signing books for men or even talking to them.
“It was my surprise to find them waiting for me with a pre-intention to stop me from signing my book and even from talking to the crowd, among whom were my fellow writers and theater-specialist colleagues,” she said.
Even the women who wished to have a signed book, according to Halemah, were frightened away by the scene, as there were two commission members, five security guards and six soldiers present.
“The scene was humiliating, especially when some male writers who came to buy the book tried to get my signature on their copies, and were rudely pushed away.”
Halemah then signed the books she already had and tried to give them to some of her colleagues, but the commission members stood between them and ordered her to pass the book to the security guard, who would pass it on.
“His behavior with me was even more rude when I asked: ‘Isn’t the guard a man? Why is it acceptable for me to hand the book to a guard but not to the man who bought the book?’”
The worst happened, according to Halemah, when another prominent writer ‘thanked her after she signed his copy. “The commission member took him aside, scolding him for thanking me considering it an offense to address a woman even with a simple phrase such as ‘thank you,’” she added.
The two hours of continuous annoyance did not go unnoticed by the Ministry of Information and Culture, explained Halemah, “as they compensated me with another signing day according to my schedule,” a day that went smoothly regardless of the presence of commission members who demanded that men and women stand in separate lines. The commission members, she said, “were hovering around me, just waiting for me to commit what they considered a sin.”
Arab News tried to obtain comments from the commission members; they said they would not speak to women who didn’t wear full-face veils.
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Saudi Arabia: Fashion falls foul of religious guardians
In an attempt to reassert their power, Saudi Arabia's religious police have ordered shopkeepers in central Riyadh to get rid of all adorned abayas, the black robes worn by women in the kingdom, as shopping picks up ahead of the Eid holiday next week.
Salesmen in al-Maagaliah market, just across the block from the headquarters of the religious police, or mutawa'a , this week were turning away frustrated shoppers who wanted abayas with a hint of colour or decoration, telling them that shopowners could face fines or prison.
In recent years, the signature flowing robe that covers Saudi women from head to toe started to show some form, with trimmed sleeves, beads or colour, a sign of relaxation of the strict social norms in the kingdom.
Though the changes were subtle, abayas provoked a tug of war between the liberal voices lobbying to give women more choice and conservative religious institutions determined to impose their austere ways through the religious police.
Liberal commentators say the religious police who roam shopping malls and public places are using the crack-down to demonstrate their continued authority af-ter recent moves have curb-ed their arbitrary powers.
After allegations of gross violations of human rights led to media uproar, the mutawa'a have been banned from chasing suspects without an escort from the regular police. They have also been forced to carry government-issued identification cards.
Women's rights activists, however, are concerned that the crackdown on the abaya marks a setback after early symbolic gains achieved since King Abdullah came to power in 2005.
"They [the mutawa'a ] want women to be faceless, nameless and shrouded in blackness,'' said Samar Falan, a women's rights activist and writer based in the city of Jeddah. "We kept quiet when we should have confronted the radicals. I believe Muslim women should dress modestly and cover their hair but they do not have to look gruesome."
Saudi women have been pushing for more rights and the government has sought to promote the participation of women in the workforce. But with every step forward comes another step back.
The mutawa'a does impose its morality on men too, forcing them sometimes to cut their hair or choose more modest shirts. But while men have a range of dress options - western attire or traditional white Saudi garb - women essentially have none.
"They should focus on fighting vices, not women,'' says Buthaina Nassr, another activist.
By Abeer Allam for the Financial Times in Riyadh
Salesmen in al-Maagaliah market, just across the block from the headquarters of the religious police, or mutawa'a , this week were turning away frustrated shoppers who wanted abayas with a hint of colour or decoration, telling them that shopowners could face fines or prison.
In recent years, the signature flowing robe that covers Saudi women from head to toe started to show some form, with trimmed sleeves, beads or colour, a sign of relaxation of the strict social norms in the kingdom.
Though the changes were subtle, abayas provoked a tug of war between the liberal voices lobbying to give women more choice and conservative religious institutions determined to impose their austere ways through the religious police.
Liberal commentators say the religious police who roam shopping malls and public places are using the crack-down to demonstrate their continued authority af-ter recent moves have curb-ed their arbitrary powers.
After allegations of gross violations of human rights led to media uproar, the mutawa'a have been banned from chasing suspects without an escort from the regular police. They have also been forced to carry government-issued identification cards.
Women's rights activists, however, are concerned that the crackdown on the abaya marks a setback after early symbolic gains achieved since King Abdullah came to power in 2005.
"They [the mutawa'a ] want women to be faceless, nameless and shrouded in blackness,'' said Samar Falan, a women's rights activist and writer based in the city of Jeddah. "We kept quiet when we should have confronted the radicals. I believe Muslim women should dress modestly and cover their hair but they do not have to look gruesome."
Saudi women have been pushing for more rights and the government has sought to promote the participation of women in the workforce. But with every step forward comes another step back.
The mutawa'a does impose its morality on men too, forcing them sometimes to cut their hair or choose more modest shirts. But while men have a range of dress options - western attire or traditional white Saudi garb - women essentially have none.
"They should focus on fighting vices, not women,'' says Buthaina Nassr, another activist.
By Abeer Allam for the Financial Times in Riyadh
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Yemen: Women respond to the Vice and Virtue Committee-( Part VI )
This is the sixth part of a series of interviews that aim to reflect the opinion of several women’s organizations, members of political parties, researchers and journalists that discuss the establishment of the Vice and Virtue Committee (VVC) in Yemen and explain their views towards women’s political participation. This series reflects a debate around the quota system for women, the current obstacles in political participation, as well as a broader discussion regarding the upcoming parliamentary elections of 2009.
On this occasion The Yemen Observer interviewed Rashida al-Hamdani, Chairperson of the Womens National Committee (WNC). Trained as a nurse, al-Hamdani studied psychology and education in India. She was an independent candidate during the 2006 local council elections, in which her goal was to make a statement and show to other women that if she could do it, they could do it. She explains: “I lost, but I think the awareness I created was a great result, especially for tribal women.”
YO: -When was the first time you heard about the VVC? What do you know about this authority?
Rashida al-Hamdani (RAH): -I did not know about this VVC until they announced their meeting in July, but prior to that, one of our staff members at the WNC went to Houdeidah for work and when she went to stay at a hotel, they refused her because she did not have a mahram or male companion. That was alarming to us and I reacted spontaneously: I think I wrote right away to the Ministry of Tourism about this issue. Then I heard about the official establishment of the VVC. The first thing that was alarming to us was that they were all men, no women was present. The second was how they gathered some 5,000 people. Where did they get the money from and how did they obtain the support to do so?
Then, it got worse because the first thing they announced was against women, against the quota system. They announced, among other things, that women meeting men in an office was something forbidden assuming that women go to work for sexual things and not to work. We do not want to respond to these accusations, we do not have to defend ourselves against this because it is absurd. The president’s program includes the quota and that is what we have to fight for.
As the WNC, I do not see the necessity to get in a political game of tit for tat. Of course, whenever we have meetings we talk about it, we are not afraid of it, but this organization, which is a non-governmental organization (NGO) is against the government and we do not want to get into conflicts with others, so we keep on working, which is the most important. We have a strategy of our own: to advocate for women’s rights. Continue with our work and be successful at it is our strategy.
YO: -How did the fatwa they issued against the quota system affect your work?
RAH: -Not at all. Not everybody can issue a fatwa. My question is: are they entitled to issue a fatwa? Because fatwas come from recognized organizations, and when that is the case, then and only then the state follows them. We have an organization of the ‘ulama in Yemen, which is a governmental body and which announces Ramadan, Eid, everything, and they are the only ones that can issue a fatwa. That is number one, the legal aspect of this fatwa. The second is related to the fact that, when the president announced his policies, we have to respect them because a policy is a direction by the president, an order by the head of the state.
The failure of one issue is the failure of the president, and he took seriously the quota. So I do not think the government will hinder its own work. The NGOs complement this work, and in the end is a work towards the success of the work of the government. I am sure that the establishment of the VVC was prepared before, I am sure they had to present it to the president, explain what they were there for, what they will do, what they will announce. But these people are an NGO for us, they are not official ‘ulama,’ and only they can issue a fatwa. What we should have is a response from the official ‘ulama.
YO: What is your opinion about the reaction of the society towards the VVC?
RAH: -People are fighting back; they are writing in newspapers, there is a web site where people report about this issue, the debate is becoming bigger and bigger. As for the government, the government should retaliate. The quota is a policy from the government and they should defend it. We were almost about to take women’s quota to the parliament, and now this sets our work back Its a deviation in our work, an unnecessary deviation. In any case women’s organizations like the Yemen Women Union (YWU) reacted immediately and they conducted many actions, even a small committee with lawyers was created to defend against these issues brought by the VVC. We work with them and with other NGOs, but we lead actions together with the government. When the government retaliates, we retaliate, we are a governmental institution and we have to act in unity with the government.
YO: Why is this happening now?
RAH: -They have been working on this for over two or three years, it was not done over night. There were reunions and debates before. There has been a big clash inside the Islah party over this issue because conservative groups have been pulling for these types of ideas. Being in a conservative country like Yemen, an organization like the VVC can have a big impact, and the liberal ‘ulama should explain this and retaliate, by saying something about the issue. We should target this response. Also it is conflicting and not clear because they say things against the president -their fatwa against the quota goes against the president’s program- at the same time that they support the president with ending the war in Sa’adah. That is a bit confusing to us.
YO: What is the WNC’s work in relationg to the quota system?
RAH: -We are pushing for 30 percent, the 15 is just the minimum we ask for. We worked with the YWU in protests to pressure over this issue. This forced the president to include the quota on his program. We have been working on this issue since the year 2000 or earlier. One of our concerns in the amendment of the electoral law was to include this quota system. Again we brought it back, and the president announced he would support us with this, which gave us more hopes to make this a reality. I think the VVC also provoked more space to talk about the quota. Now everyone talks about it and people ask and discuss about this system to include women in electoral bodies, which has been a positive impact. We take advantage of this debate to talk still more about it and make our goals advance. I am sure we will win with this.
YO: You ran as a candidate for the Local Council elections of 2006, after this experience, what do you define as the main obstacles for women in the political arena?
RAH: -The most critical thing is that women do not have money, and this is crucial because you need money to campaign. Money is always with men, they can sell their lands and get money, women cannot. When I was a candidate I had that money although I did not know I would spend that much, but then I did not want to withdraw so I continue. It has been two years now since that, and I do not regret it at all. The money I used for that, was the money I had saved for my children but ran as a candidate because I wanted to give women hope, an incentive, let them know :‘If I can do it, you can do it.’ Even if I did not succeed I did not care because I wanted to break the silence. Educated women have to work for this, work more at the party level. In my view I needed to start from the bottom so people would know my work, that is the best way to have a greater impact and then people will trust you more. For me I think that rooted work is crucial, because policies stay at another level unless you implement them.
It takes time, women need money, they have to be known, they have to provoke an impact and all that takes time. Especially in rural areas, this work is harder sometimes. If you are a candidate with party support then the story changes because they are behind you, they support you, but still you have to be elected by the people, the members of the party, but even this is easier than an independent candidate fighting alone. Women have more chances when they run with a party, definitely, and that is also a problem because parties are not always there. For the long run, the parties need to accept women as candidates. Picture’s caption: Rashida al-Hamdani, Chairperson of the Women National Committee (WNC) and candidate for the local council elections of 2006.
- Yemen Observer
On this occasion The Yemen Observer interviewed Rashida al-Hamdani, Chairperson of the Womens National Committee (WNC). Trained as a nurse, al-Hamdani studied psychology and education in India. She was an independent candidate during the 2006 local council elections, in which her goal was to make a statement and show to other women that if she could do it, they could do it. She explains: “I lost, but I think the awareness I created was a great result, especially for tribal women.”
YO: -When was the first time you heard about the VVC? What do you know about this authority?
Rashida al-Hamdani (RAH): -I did not know about this VVC until they announced their meeting in July, but prior to that, one of our staff members at the WNC went to Houdeidah for work and when she went to stay at a hotel, they refused her because she did not have a mahram or male companion. That was alarming to us and I reacted spontaneously: I think I wrote right away to the Ministry of Tourism about this issue. Then I heard about the official establishment of the VVC. The first thing that was alarming to us was that they were all men, no women was present. The second was how they gathered some 5,000 people. Where did they get the money from and how did they obtain the support to do so?
Then, it got worse because the first thing they announced was against women, against the quota system. They announced, among other things, that women meeting men in an office was something forbidden assuming that women go to work for sexual things and not to work. We do not want to respond to these accusations, we do not have to defend ourselves against this because it is absurd. The president’s program includes the quota and that is what we have to fight for.
As the WNC, I do not see the necessity to get in a political game of tit for tat. Of course, whenever we have meetings we talk about it, we are not afraid of it, but this organization, which is a non-governmental organization (NGO) is against the government and we do not want to get into conflicts with others, so we keep on working, which is the most important. We have a strategy of our own: to advocate for women’s rights. Continue with our work and be successful at it is our strategy.
YO: -How did the fatwa they issued against the quota system affect your work?
RAH: -Not at all. Not everybody can issue a fatwa. My question is: are they entitled to issue a fatwa? Because fatwas come from recognized organizations, and when that is the case, then and only then the state follows them. We have an organization of the ‘ulama in Yemen, which is a governmental body and which announces Ramadan, Eid, everything, and they are the only ones that can issue a fatwa. That is number one, the legal aspect of this fatwa. The second is related to the fact that, when the president announced his policies, we have to respect them because a policy is a direction by the president, an order by the head of the state.
The failure of one issue is the failure of the president, and he took seriously the quota. So I do not think the government will hinder its own work. The NGOs complement this work, and in the end is a work towards the success of the work of the government. I am sure that the establishment of the VVC was prepared before, I am sure they had to present it to the president, explain what they were there for, what they will do, what they will announce. But these people are an NGO for us, they are not official ‘ulama,’ and only they can issue a fatwa. What we should have is a response from the official ‘ulama.
YO: What is your opinion about the reaction of the society towards the VVC?
RAH: -People are fighting back; they are writing in newspapers, there is a web site where people report about this issue, the debate is becoming bigger and bigger. As for the government, the government should retaliate. The quota is a policy from the government and they should defend it. We were almost about to take women’s quota to the parliament, and now this sets our work back Its a deviation in our work, an unnecessary deviation. In any case women’s organizations like the Yemen Women Union (YWU) reacted immediately and they conducted many actions, even a small committee with lawyers was created to defend against these issues brought by the VVC. We work with them and with other NGOs, but we lead actions together with the government. When the government retaliates, we retaliate, we are a governmental institution and we have to act in unity with the government.
YO: Why is this happening now?
RAH: -They have been working on this for over two or three years, it was not done over night. There were reunions and debates before. There has been a big clash inside the Islah party over this issue because conservative groups have been pulling for these types of ideas. Being in a conservative country like Yemen, an organization like the VVC can have a big impact, and the liberal ‘ulama should explain this and retaliate, by saying something about the issue. We should target this response. Also it is conflicting and not clear because they say things against the president -their fatwa against the quota goes against the president’s program- at the same time that they support the president with ending the war in Sa’adah. That is a bit confusing to us.
YO: What is the WNC’s work in relationg to the quota system?
RAH: -We are pushing for 30 percent, the 15 is just the minimum we ask for. We worked with the YWU in protests to pressure over this issue. This forced the president to include the quota on his program. We have been working on this issue since the year 2000 or earlier. One of our concerns in the amendment of the electoral law was to include this quota system. Again we brought it back, and the president announced he would support us with this, which gave us more hopes to make this a reality. I think the VVC also provoked more space to talk about the quota. Now everyone talks about it and people ask and discuss about this system to include women in electoral bodies, which has been a positive impact. We take advantage of this debate to talk still more about it and make our goals advance. I am sure we will win with this.
YO: You ran as a candidate for the Local Council elections of 2006, after this experience, what do you define as the main obstacles for women in the political arena?
RAH: -The most critical thing is that women do not have money, and this is crucial because you need money to campaign. Money is always with men, they can sell their lands and get money, women cannot. When I was a candidate I had that money although I did not know I would spend that much, but then I did not want to withdraw so I continue. It has been two years now since that, and I do not regret it at all. The money I used for that, was the money I had saved for my children but ran as a candidate because I wanted to give women hope, an incentive, let them know :‘If I can do it, you can do it.’ Even if I did not succeed I did not care because I wanted to break the silence. Educated women have to work for this, work more at the party level. In my view I needed to start from the bottom so people would know my work, that is the best way to have a greater impact and then people will trust you more. For me I think that rooted work is crucial, because policies stay at another level unless you implement them.
It takes time, women need money, they have to be known, they have to provoke an impact and all that takes time. Especially in rural areas, this work is harder sometimes. If you are a candidate with party support then the story changes because they are behind you, they support you, but still you have to be elected by the people, the members of the party, but even this is easier than an independent candidate fighting alone. Women have more chances when they run with a party, definitely, and that is also a problem because parties are not always there. For the long run, the parties need to accept women as candidates. Picture’s caption: Rashida al-Hamdani, Chairperson of the Women National Committee (WNC) and candidate for the local council elections of 2006.
- Yemen Observer
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Yemen: Women respond to the Vice and Virtue Committee-( Part V )
This is the fifth part of a series of interviews that aim to reflect the opinion of several women’s organizations, members of political parties, researchers and journalists that discuss the establishment of the Vice and Virtue Committee (VVC) in Yemen and explain their views towards women’s political participation. This series reflects a debate around the quota system for women, the current obstacles in political participation, as well as a broader discussion regarding the upcoming parliamentary elections of 2009.
In this issue The Yemen Observer interviewed Raufah Hassan: an academic, a researcher and a social activist. Hassan is currently professor of Media Studies at the University of Sana’a, where she is also a research member at the Gender Studies Center. Head of the Cultural Development Programs Foundation, Raufah Hassan accomplished her studies in Egypt, the United States and France. As a professor, she has taught Mass Media and Social Change, Gender Studies, and Islamic feminism theories among other courses.
Yemen Observer (YO): -How do you explain the establishment of the VVC in Yemen?
Raufah Hassan (RH): -I followed all the acts done by this group from the very beginning, so I know about the first poster they held half a year ago, where they presented 13 issues they were against and they collected 91 signatures from what they called “Scientist Sheikhs of Islam,” the ‘ulama. I analysed this poster and I presented my analysis in a paper at a conference.
I then drew attention to our colleagues at the Women National Committee and the Yemen Women Union, who did not know anything about it yet. I was very much concerned because their points attacked the possibility of making any modification of the laws for or in favour of women, considering that to be against Islam. We discussed that and we decided that we would not make it a bigger issue than what it was, so we did not lead any actions. Then I followed through the news that this group of people met with the President so as to ask him to allow them to form their authority in an official manner. First, they wanted their authority to be related to the President, to be it governmental, but the President refused and politely said that he would think about it and never did anything.
Then, they decided to hold another meeting in which they announced that they would have the form of a non-governmental organization (NGO), and given the freedom we have in Yemen to make groups, they did it. In the beginning they were attacked by many journalists who considered them to be a replica of the Saudi “moral police.” There were so many articles defending and attacking them before they even held the conference that officially established them. Then, they decided the dates of their meetings which brings us to now and the latest events (Raufah Hassan refers to the nomination of Sheikh al-Zindani as its president and Sheikh Sadeq al-Ahmar as its vice president on the 12th of August, 2008).
YO: -Why do you think this religious authority emerges now?
RH: -It is not happening now, it has been happening for a long time. These groups have been formulated in Yemen in the 70s, reformulated in the 80s, they have been formulated again in 1994, and now they appear again for the forth time, so the time is not a big issue. Every time they appear, they come with a new face: sometimes an association, sometimes they appear as part of a party, others like groups supported by officials and sometimes by the public. I have followed these events since a long time ago now, and the time does not really matter because now we are just experiencing another “wave” of the same phenomenon.
At least this time, in the beginning, it was aimed to create either a political party that is more extremist or to pressure on the Islah party to accept a certain agenda. The Islah party is now part of the Joint Meeting Parties (JMP) coalition and as such is now negotiating an agenda that is less radical than what it used to be, so the ones who felt excluded want now to show their power. There is a political agenda behind all that.
YO: -What would this “agenda” be and who are “they” when you talk about “their” reformulation over the years?
RH: -We do have 5000 people that met under the title of the “’ulama,” most of them were graduates from al-Eman University. The head of the University was announced to be the head of this group, the son of Sheikh al-Ahmar was announced to be its deputy: it is a formula that shows a tribal support and a religious coalition to bring about something that was present at the beginning of the formulation of al-Islah Party in the 90s (since its establishment as a political party, the Islah Party has been based on three political streams: the tribal stream led by Sheikh al-Ahmar and now led by his son, the Muslim Brotherhood group considered the intellectual and reformist stream, and the conservative group led by Sheikh al-Zindani).
Now we have a similar coalition, again these groups get together once more in the newly formulated virtue authority. Now, when I say “they” I refer to the ones that benefit from this kind of power and power meaning here authority, resources and influence. They announced –we are not going to talk on their behalf, but on what they announced- their agenda clearly: they spoke of the Sa’adah war, social movements, women and the movements in the South of the country. Their political agenda is clear.
YO: -What is your opinion in relation to women and the fatwa they issued against the quota system?
RH: -The virtue authority as a group did not issue this fatwa, it was distributed at their meeting by a group of radicals more radicals than the whole authority who used the opportunity of this conference to distribute that. It is an opinion that had existed for a long time and that now expressed itself in a stronger manner but it belongs to a group inside another group.
YO: - The quota system: is it an effective solution to women’s participation?
RH: -Well, the quota is just a mechanism to help women in the issue of political participation, but is not the final goal of the women’s movement. Getting women to the parliament successfully is not going to be done through a quota system, it has to be done through another system so is “okay” if people oppose this specific mechanism. Women and the men that support them have to work through other methods and mechanisms. The wording sometimes and the mechanisms some other times make issues bigger than what the reality is.
The reality is how to support women and make them present in the elected bodies. To do that many things can be done, so if the quota is refused then let’s do something else. I was in the Beijing Conference (in reference to the Fourth World Conference held in Beijing in 1995), and I joined the work on the agenda that came as an outcome and as a plan of action after this conference. In the plan of action Yemen signed, it was supposed to encourage women and their political participation, empower them through a quota of at least 30%.
Coming back to Yemen and presenting a quota of just 15% is a step, but just one step. Now, for me is not the end, is just another method and that is why I do not put emphasis on it because I consider it as another step. As such, it has been taken by the President, supported by some, rejected by others, but even this rejection made people talk about it, which is good on itself.
YO: -What is your stand about women’s organizations’ responses on the events provoked by the Virtue Authority?
RH: -Is good. In our Foundation (Cultural Development Programs Foundation is a non-governmental organization that aims at increasing the level of cultural awareness) we have not taken any steps, we are waiting for them to do more. I think they are going to do more for the coming election (Parliamentary election, programmed to be held on April 2009). That is why we have to be vigilant about it. The quota system was clear that, after the refusal of the modification of the election law, was not going to take place in this election; but because the modification of the constitution has not taken place, it is still a subject that is not over in Yemen.
The quota needs either an agreement from the political parties or a legal modification of laws in such a way that it does not go against the constitution or the modifications/amendments to the constitution. If that took place, then you could say the quota “is an issue,” but is not an issue, is out of questions, so why are you going to put all your efforts in something that is not workable? We have to work now for the 2009 election from the point of view that women have to win. We cannot do it through the quota because the quota is already gone, so instead of crying on the milk that has been spoiled let’s do something.
YO: -Like what?
RH: -Everybody can do something. For instance our Foundation is creating a network called Ansar that will support women candidates in eight governorates where women had won in previous local council elections but not in the parliament, so we will support them. We know that the legal system now makes it difficult for women to be independent candidates because they request 300 signatures. Our network will help women get the signatures they need and we will also help them to have an environment of support, we will help them in their campaigns through creating groups inside Ansar that will really vote for them. Is the social environment the one that needs to be changed, or improved, or enhanced and we will work for that to happen. Also we will support the groups that are doing a similar work.
YO: -Is Ansar similar to the Watan Alliance? (The Watan Alliance was a pioneer initiative among women activists to form an alliance that would support women socially and economically to be independent candidates during any election. This Alliance was created in 2006, during the past presidential and local council elections)
RH: -Yes, but we support not only independent candidates but also candidates from political parties. Our Foundation was actually the former secretary of the Watan Coalition, we helped them in their creation, but this coalition is loose and because of that is not structured which makes it incapable of producing programs. Now our network, Ansar, has strong ties, it is directed and supported by the Foundation who is responsible for it, so we are required to respond for their actions. Watan was a good coalition and there can be collaboration with the Ansar network, but the latter would be an executive body.
YO: -Regarding the upcoming election, how do you see the possibilities for the opposition coalition? Did the latest political events divide it?
RH: - The JMP is still the JMP, it has not announced to be divided or out of the election. The Virtue Authority is also there, and it has not announced to become a party. Islah is still a political party that has not announced to be divided. All these rumours of division are just rumours, so I do not deal with them as facts. It does not mean that much. When the parties will present candidates and when women will begin to face problems, then it will be the real exam for these groups.
YO: -What is your reading of the latest movements among the political actors?
RH: -If al-Zindani is to break the Islah Party only he can answer that, but even though, I personally doubt it. By reading the map of Yemen’s political tendencies, he seems to be making pressure, showing that if he does what he wants he can hurt, and if they exclude or put him aside, he is showing that he is going to react. It is a language, a code, between them. Do we decode it correctly, I am not sure.
YO: -What can you tell us about the events that took place in 1999 and that mentioned Antelak al-Mutawakeel in the previous interview, which targeted the Center for Gender Studies and you personally?
RH: -In 1999 Islah was not able to present a candidate for the election and they had to choose the President, which was the worse option for them, so they had to occupy their members with something bigger, a bigger danger like our center and myself, which they presented as a threat to Islam. In that way the members of the party would not think about the internal problems. I do not know if Islah has solved these problems because in the second presidential election they had to come with a candidate that came from outside their party and that was chosen by the JMP -Faisal Bin Shamlan- that could save the unity of the Islah party because Islah could not solve this internal problem.
Until today the Islah Party has not been able to produce a candidate in the name of Islah and defend him without having problems among the groups inside the party. Now, if they will be able to do so in the upcoming election, I do not know. I really wish for them that al-Zindani and his group make their own political party and leave Islah in peace, so they could really grow and could be strong and able to produce a good candidate, but this is just a wish.
- Yemen Observer
In this issue The Yemen Observer interviewed Raufah Hassan: an academic, a researcher and a social activist. Hassan is currently professor of Media Studies at the University of Sana’a, where she is also a research member at the Gender Studies Center. Head of the Cultural Development Programs Foundation, Raufah Hassan accomplished her studies in Egypt, the United States and France. As a professor, she has taught Mass Media and Social Change, Gender Studies, and Islamic feminism theories among other courses.
Yemen Observer (YO): -How do you explain the establishment of the VVC in Yemen?
Raufah Hassan (RH): -I followed all the acts done by this group from the very beginning, so I know about the first poster they held half a year ago, where they presented 13 issues they were against and they collected 91 signatures from what they called “Scientist Sheikhs of Islam,” the ‘ulama. I analysed this poster and I presented my analysis in a paper at a conference.
I then drew attention to our colleagues at the Women National Committee and the Yemen Women Union, who did not know anything about it yet. I was very much concerned because their points attacked the possibility of making any modification of the laws for or in favour of women, considering that to be against Islam. We discussed that and we decided that we would not make it a bigger issue than what it was, so we did not lead any actions. Then I followed through the news that this group of people met with the President so as to ask him to allow them to form their authority in an official manner. First, they wanted their authority to be related to the President, to be it governmental, but the President refused and politely said that he would think about it and never did anything.
Then, they decided to hold another meeting in which they announced that they would have the form of a non-governmental organization (NGO), and given the freedom we have in Yemen to make groups, they did it. In the beginning they were attacked by many journalists who considered them to be a replica of the Saudi “moral police.” There were so many articles defending and attacking them before they even held the conference that officially established them. Then, they decided the dates of their meetings which brings us to now and the latest events (Raufah Hassan refers to the nomination of Sheikh al-Zindani as its president and Sheikh Sadeq al-Ahmar as its vice president on the 12th of August, 2008).
YO: -Why do you think this religious authority emerges now?
RH: -It is not happening now, it has been happening for a long time. These groups have been formulated in Yemen in the 70s, reformulated in the 80s, they have been formulated again in 1994, and now they appear again for the forth time, so the time is not a big issue. Every time they appear, they come with a new face: sometimes an association, sometimes they appear as part of a party, others like groups supported by officials and sometimes by the public. I have followed these events since a long time ago now, and the time does not really matter because now we are just experiencing another “wave” of the same phenomenon.
At least this time, in the beginning, it was aimed to create either a political party that is more extremist or to pressure on the Islah party to accept a certain agenda. The Islah party is now part of the Joint Meeting Parties (JMP) coalition and as such is now negotiating an agenda that is less radical than what it used to be, so the ones who felt excluded want now to show their power. There is a political agenda behind all that.
YO: -What would this “agenda” be and who are “they” when you talk about “their” reformulation over the years?
RH: -We do have 5000 people that met under the title of the “’ulama,” most of them were graduates from al-Eman University. The head of the University was announced to be the head of this group, the son of Sheikh al-Ahmar was announced to be its deputy: it is a formula that shows a tribal support and a religious coalition to bring about something that was present at the beginning of the formulation of al-Islah Party in the 90s (since its establishment as a political party, the Islah Party has been based on three political streams: the tribal stream led by Sheikh al-Ahmar and now led by his son, the Muslim Brotherhood group considered the intellectual and reformist stream, and the conservative group led by Sheikh al-Zindani).
Now we have a similar coalition, again these groups get together once more in the newly formulated virtue authority. Now, when I say “they” I refer to the ones that benefit from this kind of power and power meaning here authority, resources and influence. They announced –we are not going to talk on their behalf, but on what they announced- their agenda clearly: they spoke of the Sa’adah war, social movements, women and the movements in the South of the country. Their political agenda is clear.
YO: -What is your opinion in relation to women and the fatwa they issued against the quota system?
RH: -The virtue authority as a group did not issue this fatwa, it was distributed at their meeting by a group of radicals more radicals than the whole authority who used the opportunity of this conference to distribute that. It is an opinion that had existed for a long time and that now expressed itself in a stronger manner but it belongs to a group inside another group.
YO: - The quota system: is it an effective solution to women’s participation?
RH: -Well, the quota is just a mechanism to help women in the issue of political participation, but is not the final goal of the women’s movement. Getting women to the parliament successfully is not going to be done through a quota system, it has to be done through another system so is “okay” if people oppose this specific mechanism. Women and the men that support them have to work through other methods and mechanisms. The wording sometimes and the mechanisms some other times make issues bigger than what the reality is.
The reality is how to support women and make them present in the elected bodies. To do that many things can be done, so if the quota is refused then let’s do something else. I was in the Beijing Conference (in reference to the Fourth World Conference held in Beijing in 1995), and I joined the work on the agenda that came as an outcome and as a plan of action after this conference. In the plan of action Yemen signed, it was supposed to encourage women and their political participation, empower them through a quota of at least 30%.
Coming back to Yemen and presenting a quota of just 15% is a step, but just one step. Now, for me is not the end, is just another method and that is why I do not put emphasis on it because I consider it as another step. As such, it has been taken by the President, supported by some, rejected by others, but even this rejection made people talk about it, which is good on itself.
YO: -What is your stand about women’s organizations’ responses on the events provoked by the Virtue Authority?
RH: -Is good. In our Foundation (Cultural Development Programs Foundation is a non-governmental organization that aims at increasing the level of cultural awareness) we have not taken any steps, we are waiting for them to do more. I think they are going to do more for the coming election (Parliamentary election, programmed to be held on April 2009). That is why we have to be vigilant about it. The quota system was clear that, after the refusal of the modification of the election law, was not going to take place in this election; but because the modification of the constitution has not taken place, it is still a subject that is not over in Yemen.
The quota needs either an agreement from the political parties or a legal modification of laws in such a way that it does not go against the constitution or the modifications/amendments to the constitution. If that took place, then you could say the quota “is an issue,” but is not an issue, is out of questions, so why are you going to put all your efforts in something that is not workable? We have to work now for the 2009 election from the point of view that women have to win. We cannot do it through the quota because the quota is already gone, so instead of crying on the milk that has been spoiled let’s do something.
YO: -Like what?
RH: -Everybody can do something. For instance our Foundation is creating a network called Ansar that will support women candidates in eight governorates where women had won in previous local council elections but not in the parliament, so we will support them. We know that the legal system now makes it difficult for women to be independent candidates because they request 300 signatures. Our network will help women get the signatures they need and we will also help them to have an environment of support, we will help them in their campaigns through creating groups inside Ansar that will really vote for them. Is the social environment the one that needs to be changed, or improved, or enhanced and we will work for that to happen. Also we will support the groups that are doing a similar work.
YO: -Is Ansar similar to the Watan Alliance? (The Watan Alliance was a pioneer initiative among women activists to form an alliance that would support women socially and economically to be independent candidates during any election. This Alliance was created in 2006, during the past presidential and local council elections)
RH: -Yes, but we support not only independent candidates but also candidates from political parties. Our Foundation was actually the former secretary of the Watan Coalition, we helped them in their creation, but this coalition is loose and because of that is not structured which makes it incapable of producing programs. Now our network, Ansar, has strong ties, it is directed and supported by the Foundation who is responsible for it, so we are required to respond for their actions. Watan was a good coalition and there can be collaboration with the Ansar network, but the latter would be an executive body.
YO: -Regarding the upcoming election, how do you see the possibilities for the opposition coalition? Did the latest political events divide it?
RH: - The JMP is still the JMP, it has not announced to be divided or out of the election. The Virtue Authority is also there, and it has not announced to become a party. Islah is still a political party that has not announced to be divided. All these rumours of division are just rumours, so I do not deal with them as facts. It does not mean that much. When the parties will present candidates and when women will begin to face problems, then it will be the real exam for these groups.
YO: -What is your reading of the latest movements among the political actors?
RH: -If al-Zindani is to break the Islah Party only he can answer that, but even though, I personally doubt it. By reading the map of Yemen’s political tendencies, he seems to be making pressure, showing that if he does what he wants he can hurt, and if they exclude or put him aside, he is showing that he is going to react. It is a language, a code, between them. Do we decode it correctly, I am not sure.
YO: -What can you tell us about the events that took place in 1999 and that mentioned Antelak al-Mutawakeel in the previous interview, which targeted the Center for Gender Studies and you personally?
RH: -In 1999 Islah was not able to present a candidate for the election and they had to choose the President, which was the worse option for them, so they had to occupy their members with something bigger, a bigger danger like our center and myself, which they presented as a threat to Islam. In that way the members of the party would not think about the internal problems. I do not know if Islah has solved these problems because in the second presidential election they had to come with a candidate that came from outside their party and that was chosen by the JMP -Faisal Bin Shamlan- that could save the unity of the Islah party because Islah could not solve this internal problem.
Until today the Islah Party has not been able to produce a candidate in the name of Islah and defend him without having problems among the groups inside the party. Now, if they will be able to do so in the upcoming election, I do not know. I really wish for them that al-Zindani and his group make their own political party and leave Islah in peace, so they could really grow and could be strong and able to produce a good candidate, but this is just a wish.
- Yemen Observer
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Yemen: Women respond to the Vice and Virtue Committee-( Part IV )
Following the creation of the Vice and Virtue Committee (VVC) on July 15th and in response to the fatwa issued by this authority against a system that would allocate 15 percent of the electoral bodies’ seats to women (women’s quota), several female political activists, members of non-governmental organizations, journalists and researchers have reacted and made public their opinion regarding these events. This is the forth of a series of interviews published by The Yemen Observer that aim to reflect the debate generated among some of these women, who are analysing the meanings of the VVC, the situation of women’s political participation in Yemen, and their responses to the obstacles they find.
In this occasion we interviewed Antelak al-Mutawakeel, an academic and a civil society activist, whose focus of research and work are on youth in Yemen, education and gender.
Antelak al-Mutawakeel, professor at the University of Sana’a and head of the Girls World Communication Center.
She graduated from the literature program in the English Department of the University of Sana’a, where she currently teaches. Al-Mutawakeel completed her doctoral program in Holland thanks to the ‘gender scholarship’ through the Dutch embassy that was aimed at helping women to study and have a family at the same time. In 1998 while she was still studying, she started to develop the idea of what later on would become the Girls World Communication Center (GWCC), a non-governmental organization that works towards increasing youth participation in social, political and economic aspects of society.
Yemen Observer (YO)- What can you tell us about the Vice and Virtue Committee?
Antelak al-Mutawakeel (AAM): -It is certainly a very recent issue which shocked us all. I first heard about the VVC through the news and then I started to connect what people had been saying about groups acting in defense of virtue in cities like Hodeidah. The VVC is really not a clear organization or a clear issue at all. What exactly are their principles? I believe what they are doing is not clear.
Are they going to fight corruption at the political level? If they would do so, they would actually do something good. Personally, I am not against “virtue,” this is something we all agree with, but what we all need to understand better is what is this Virtue Authority? Who are they? What do they really stand for? Are they official or not? None of this is clear. Even the government’s approach to the VVC has been ambiguous: at the beginning the VVC had the blessing from the government but lately we started to read in many newspapers that the government and the president attacked them.
I just read a couple of days ago that al-Eryani declared that the government is not with the VVC while not too long ago the President was allowing them to celebrate their first conference. We, citizens, do not know what VVC is and what their plans are for the future. We all are against vice and with virtue, but we need to understand what this VVC is and who and what are they going to fight, otherwise it can be very misleading.
YO: - Why do you think the VVC emerges now, at this precise political moment?
AAM: - Because they are clearly a political organization, although who is really behind it is not clear. This can be explained by the simple fact that they emerged all of a sudden. They are not a civil society organization built with time and out of social work. At the same time this organization seems to follow the Saudi model (The Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, which is financed and supported by the government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and commonly referred to as the “religious police” of that country).
Saudi Arabia is now realizing that it needs to get rid of this model, so why would we copy a model that proved to be a failure? If we are to fight vice we should start with poverty and corruption. We should look at those problems that affect the entire society and not each person at the individual and private level. In any case, what is true is that every time we have upcoming elections this kind of thing happens so as to deviate the attention from the real problems. For instance, in the 1999 presidential elections the Women’s Studies Center (University of Sana’a) was attacked and “gender” became a big issue.
They created a big discussion about whether or not “gender” was an appropriate term. Now gender is accepted everywhere and the Center included the term in its name, becoming a Gender Studies Center. Women or gender and religion are hot issues; especially religion is a sensitive issue that affects everyone, educated and non-educated people alike. It is very easy to use religion or the ideas of virtue and vice to divert the attention from other issues, because anyone can connect with them and doing so before the elections is a clear political movement. There are political reasons behind the VVC and for example, when they focus on prostitution, we should first look at the reasons behind it because prostitution is an outcome of poverty, and poverty and corruption are more important problems. In addition to this, we already have laws against prostitution or alcohol; we just need the laws to work and not a Virtue Authority going after individuals.
YO: -What is your opinion about the fatwa they issued against a quota system to allocate seats to women in electoral bodies?
AAM: - The only thing I can do is laugh at it. Really, to say that the quota is haram (forbidden in Islam) just makes me laugh. When I heard about it I thought to myself ‘this cannot be said by scholars!’ The dangerous thing is that they play with the fact that everyone will engage with this because the scholars signed it. But even this issue is again not clear, some people say the fatwa is valid, some others say is not. The whole issue is vague and made to be vague in purpose. Making things vague, making people engage in conflict with each other, making the newspapers talk about it, is all aimed at diverting the attention from the real problems. That is why I think we should not focus on the VVC.
I will not fight against them, is not worth it, and I will just continue doing my work. A political agreement created the VVC, but once everything is calmed nothing will happen, it will be like with the word “gender” which now is no longer a problem and everyone uses it, even in small villages. Now they are using religion for political purposes and that is not Islam. They are limiting Islam to what it is not, limiting us, whereas Islam is about understanding and doing intellectual work to understand things around us.
YO: - Many women’s organizations have reacted against this authority and against the fatwa, do you agree with their actions?
AAM: - I have not really discussed this with other women from these organizations so I cannot really say much about it. In any case, I think women should not busy themselves with this issue and we should not make it bigger than what it actually is. This is just a game, a political game that the President supports one day and attacks the afterwards.
YO:- The government first gave the green light to the VVC and now it critiques it, it first enabled them to exist but then the VVC issued a fatwa against the quota that is part of the government’s program, what is your interpretation of these events?
AAM: - Maybe the government does not want this quota system to pass as a law. The government has been promising women so many things, it promised the quota but this promise never became real, neither with the government nor with the opposition. Now with the VVC issuing this fatwa against the quota system, the government can say that is not because of them and thus put the responsibility on someone else’s shoulders. They always use women for political purposes and I just wish they would use something different because playing with women or religion is very dangerous. Look at what happened in Sa’adah, with a war that lasted some five years. I hope politicians start choosing carefully what they use in their campaigns from now on, because using women can provoke violence against women as well.
YO: - What is your point of view regarding the quota system?
AAM: -I think it can be useful but only for a short or limited period of time. Also it needs to be accompanied by other empowerment tools. Women can already compete with men, but what is necessary is an authority will for this to become real. Our society is ready for this and for a lot more, no one says ‘no’ when a woman gets elected, the problem is not the society. Yemen has a society that praises its queens more than any king (in reference to the queens Arwa and Bilquis).
We are proud of having a history of powerful women and there are no problems with the society accepting women in power. When you look at who says ‘no’ to women in power the answer is the authority, the government. If they change, everything could change. So many civil society organizations are led by women and there has never been any social or cultural opposition to this, why then these women are not in the government? The government until now has not done any serious work to let women occupy higher positions. A quota could be good for this, but it can not be a system that lasts forever. I would never want to have a post of power because I am a woman; I want to have it because I am a person that deserves it, that is qualified for it. Usually the society is blamed for this but in the end, society or culture is just used as scapegoats, the real problem lies within the people in power.
- Yemen Observer
In this occasion we interviewed Antelak al-Mutawakeel, an academic and a civil society activist, whose focus of research and work are on youth in Yemen, education and gender.
Antelak al-Mutawakeel, professor at the University of Sana’a and head of the Girls World Communication Center.
She graduated from the literature program in the English Department of the University of Sana’a, where she currently teaches. Al-Mutawakeel completed her doctoral program in Holland thanks to the ‘gender scholarship’ through the Dutch embassy that was aimed at helping women to study and have a family at the same time. In 1998 while she was still studying, she started to develop the idea of what later on would become the Girls World Communication Center (GWCC), a non-governmental organization that works towards increasing youth participation in social, political and economic aspects of society.
Yemen Observer (YO)- What can you tell us about the Vice and Virtue Committee?
Antelak al-Mutawakeel (AAM): -It is certainly a very recent issue which shocked us all. I first heard about the VVC through the news and then I started to connect what people had been saying about groups acting in defense of virtue in cities like Hodeidah. The VVC is really not a clear organization or a clear issue at all. What exactly are their principles? I believe what they are doing is not clear.
Are they going to fight corruption at the political level? If they would do so, they would actually do something good. Personally, I am not against “virtue,” this is something we all agree with, but what we all need to understand better is what is this Virtue Authority? Who are they? What do they really stand for? Are they official or not? None of this is clear. Even the government’s approach to the VVC has been ambiguous: at the beginning the VVC had the blessing from the government but lately we started to read in many newspapers that the government and the president attacked them.
I just read a couple of days ago that al-Eryani declared that the government is not with the VVC while not too long ago the President was allowing them to celebrate their first conference. We, citizens, do not know what VVC is and what their plans are for the future. We all are against vice and with virtue, but we need to understand what this VVC is and who and what are they going to fight, otherwise it can be very misleading.
YO: - Why do you think the VVC emerges now, at this precise political moment?
AAM: - Because they are clearly a political organization, although who is really behind it is not clear. This can be explained by the simple fact that they emerged all of a sudden. They are not a civil society organization built with time and out of social work. At the same time this organization seems to follow the Saudi model (The Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, which is financed and supported by the government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and commonly referred to as the “religious police” of that country).
Saudi Arabia is now realizing that it needs to get rid of this model, so why would we copy a model that proved to be a failure? If we are to fight vice we should start with poverty and corruption. We should look at those problems that affect the entire society and not each person at the individual and private level. In any case, what is true is that every time we have upcoming elections this kind of thing happens so as to deviate the attention from the real problems. For instance, in the 1999 presidential elections the Women’s Studies Center (University of Sana’a) was attacked and “gender” became a big issue.
They created a big discussion about whether or not “gender” was an appropriate term. Now gender is accepted everywhere and the Center included the term in its name, becoming a Gender Studies Center. Women or gender and religion are hot issues; especially religion is a sensitive issue that affects everyone, educated and non-educated people alike. It is very easy to use religion or the ideas of virtue and vice to divert the attention from other issues, because anyone can connect with them and doing so before the elections is a clear political movement. There are political reasons behind the VVC and for example, when they focus on prostitution, we should first look at the reasons behind it because prostitution is an outcome of poverty, and poverty and corruption are more important problems. In addition to this, we already have laws against prostitution or alcohol; we just need the laws to work and not a Virtue Authority going after individuals.
YO: -What is your opinion about the fatwa they issued against a quota system to allocate seats to women in electoral bodies?
AAM: - The only thing I can do is laugh at it. Really, to say that the quota is haram (forbidden in Islam) just makes me laugh. When I heard about it I thought to myself ‘this cannot be said by scholars!’ The dangerous thing is that they play with the fact that everyone will engage with this because the scholars signed it. But even this issue is again not clear, some people say the fatwa is valid, some others say is not. The whole issue is vague and made to be vague in purpose. Making things vague, making people engage in conflict with each other, making the newspapers talk about it, is all aimed at diverting the attention from the real problems. That is why I think we should not focus on the VVC.
I will not fight against them, is not worth it, and I will just continue doing my work. A political agreement created the VVC, but once everything is calmed nothing will happen, it will be like with the word “gender” which now is no longer a problem and everyone uses it, even in small villages. Now they are using religion for political purposes and that is not Islam. They are limiting Islam to what it is not, limiting us, whereas Islam is about understanding and doing intellectual work to understand things around us.
YO: - Many women’s organizations have reacted against this authority and against the fatwa, do you agree with their actions?
AAM: - I have not really discussed this with other women from these organizations so I cannot really say much about it. In any case, I think women should not busy themselves with this issue and we should not make it bigger than what it actually is. This is just a game, a political game that the President supports one day and attacks the afterwards.
YO:- The government first gave the green light to the VVC and now it critiques it, it first enabled them to exist but then the VVC issued a fatwa against the quota that is part of the government’s program, what is your interpretation of these events?
AAM: - Maybe the government does not want this quota system to pass as a law. The government has been promising women so many things, it promised the quota but this promise never became real, neither with the government nor with the opposition. Now with the VVC issuing this fatwa against the quota system, the government can say that is not because of them and thus put the responsibility on someone else’s shoulders. They always use women for political purposes and I just wish they would use something different because playing with women or religion is very dangerous. Look at what happened in Sa’adah, with a war that lasted some five years. I hope politicians start choosing carefully what they use in their campaigns from now on, because using women can provoke violence against women as well.
YO: - What is your point of view regarding the quota system?
AAM: -I think it can be useful but only for a short or limited period of time. Also it needs to be accompanied by other empowerment tools. Women can already compete with men, but what is necessary is an authority will for this to become real. Our society is ready for this and for a lot more, no one says ‘no’ when a woman gets elected, the problem is not the society. Yemen has a society that praises its queens more than any king (in reference to the queens Arwa and Bilquis).
We are proud of having a history of powerful women and there are no problems with the society accepting women in power. When you look at who says ‘no’ to women in power the answer is the authority, the government. If they change, everything could change. So many civil society organizations are led by women and there has never been any social or cultural opposition to this, why then these women are not in the government? The government until now has not done any serious work to let women occupy higher positions. A quota could be good for this, but it can not be a system that lasts forever. I would never want to have a post of power because I am a woman; I want to have it because I am a person that deserves it, that is qualified for it. Usually the society is blamed for this but in the end, society or culture is just used as scapegoats, the real problem lies within the people in power.
- Yemen Observer
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Yemen: Women respond to the Vice and Virtue Committee-( Part III )
Following the creation of the Vice and Virtue Committee in July 15th and in response to the fatwa issued by this authority against a system that would allocate 15 percent of the electoral bodies’ seats to women (women’s quota), several female political activists, members of non-governmental organizations, journalists and researchers have reacted and made public their opinion regarding these events.
This is the third of a series of interviews published by The Yemen Observer that aim to reflect the debate generated among some of these women, who are analysing the meanings of the VVC, the situation of women’s political participation in Yemen, and their responses to the obstacles they find. In this issue the Yemen Observer interviewed Tawkkol A. Karman, member of the Majlis al-Shura (Consultative Assembly) at the Islamist party Islah and chairwoman of Women Journalists Without Chains (WJWC), a non-governmental organization that works towards the promotion of freedom of speech and press.
Mother of three children, she studied Business Administration and has been a journalist for the past 11 years. Her father, one of the founders of the Muslim Brotherhood in Yemen, was Minister of Legal Affairs. A year ago she was among the several people that weekly, held sit-ins in front of the Yemeni Cabinet protesting against the banning of certain newspapers, the monopole of TV and radio stations by the government, the attack directed against journalists critical with the government, and in general, defending the right of expression. After 25 sit-ins they got 19 newspapers’ licences back.
Yemen Observer (YO): - When was the first time you heard about the Virtue Authority?
Tawkkol A. Karman (TAK): - This authority is a new authority, it just came to existence after a conference the ‘ulama held in July, but before that they did not exist. They came to existence after they met with the president, who allowed them to hold their conferences, so this authority is something coming from the presidential office.
In my opinion is not necessary, not even relevant, to talk about this authority anymore because is already dead. They held a conference or two, they announced their program, journalists refused it and opposed it, some of the ‘ulama did too, and that is as far as they got. They said they would gather once a year (the Vice Authority had previously proposed the establishment of permanent committees which would monitor vice-related activities of individuals and institutions, which the government rejected. In July they announced that they would hold annual meetings) so I consider them as another non-governmental organization (NGO).
YO: - What do you think about the fatwa they issued against women’s political participation and the quota system?
TAK: -I think this issue has become disproportionate in size. First of all, the booklet containing the fatwa does not make any sense, is as if it was written thousands of years ago. The second is that there are so many, too many fatwas that contradict that one fatwa and I do not understand why journalists and women’s organizations have focused that much on this one fatwa issued by the Virtue Authority.
I do not understand why no one speaks about the other fatwas, they only listened to what al-Zindani had to say but they should read other fatwas and speak about what other members of the ‘ulama think and not only of al-Zindani. Many ‘ulama support women’s right to become president if they want to, but now al-Zindani speaks and everyone gets upset, but he is just one person, one opinion. He has the right to express whatever he wants, is his own right of expression, but in the end we are the ones making out of his words and acts something bigger.
I think women’s organizations that denounced so much the fatwa and the Virtue Authority were wrong when they shouted about it. This authority became bigger because these denunciations made it bigger, but their fatwa does not make sense, is one among many others, and they are just another NGO.
YO: - But the Virtue Authority attacked women’s political participation and given that we are so close to the next parliamentary elections…
TAK: - Women’s political participation is a right we have by the Constitution, by law (Women –and man- can vote and be elected members of political institutions since 1960, when the Yemen Arab Republic (YAR) was established in the North. In the South, women obtained these and many other rights after the independence from the British colony and the formation of a Marxist-Leninist Republic, the People’s Democratic Republic Of Yemen (PDRY) in 1967.
The PDRY promoted women’s education, declared equality between genders, and offered an appropriate legal environment to assure these rights. For instance, the 1974 Family Code was considered one of the most advanced pieces of legislation in the entire region in relation to the rights it provided to women in terms of marriage, divorce and children’s custody. This code was made null after the unification of North and South in 1990, provoking a deep impact on the life of southerner women).
A fatwa, any fatwa, cannot affect or change these rights. The problem is instead related to a political decision regarding women’s participation: the problem is not the fatwa, is the political decision of the people in power that do not give a real possibility for women to participate. The Constitution, in its article number 2, says that Islam is the religion of this country and that women and men are to be treated equally. The right to participate, we already have it. Now the problem is how to practice what is written in the Constitution, which is another thing. A social explanation would make clear this obstacle, but this social problem has nothing to do with the fatwa.
If the fatwa would be a real problem, a real obstacle, then the State would have to go and make women like Amata al-Razak, (Minister of Social Affairs and Works) leave the Parliament if this was against our religion, which is not the case. I know this fatwa can be dangerous, but is just one fatwa. I know that what al-Zindani says can threaten women’s efforts, but again, this is just one person. We should also speak about other ‘ulama, like Muhammad Saif al-’Udaini, who also speaks about women’s participation explaining women’s rights in Islam. And this is just one example, there are many other opinions to be heard that support women. Al-Zindani is just one voice.
YO: -Why do you think this phenomenon is happening now?
TAK: -For two reasons: one is that the ruling party allowed them to exist as a way to attack the Islah party, which is the main opposition party, but the Virtue Authority is not part of Islah and Islah rejected this authority with a press release from the very beginning, and so did the Joint Meeting Parties (JMP), the opposition coalition Islah is part of. The second reason is that Saudi Arabia supports this authority and also the Shi’a in Yemen. When the president knew about this, he stopped the Virtue Authority (By the end of August the president declared his rejection and refusal of religious people becoming moral police in Yemen following the model of Saudi Arabia, al-Shar’a newspaper, 30 August, 2008). Now, have you heard anything else about the authority? Nothing, right? It just lasted for one month, just one.
YO:- What is your opinion about a quota system for women?
TAK: - I refuse the quota but not for the reasons the Virtue Authority said. I have other reasons. First, I consider that women have the capacity to access power on their own, the quota is not giving any right to women because women already have this right to participate. Second, the quota is like a gift from men to women, is not something obtained through merit. It is even worse than a gift, because is given as the last thing you can give. A third reason is that the quota system puts women in a lower position in relation to men, it stresses that they are not equal and that they are weak and not capable of being candidates on their own.
The quota defines women’s participation through women’s gender, and not because of their work (That the quota system hinders women’s participation is an idea widely extended and which departs from the fact that the quota, in this view, is against the principle of equal opportunity, is based on gender and not on ideas, merit or party platforms, is undemocratic and makes election processes be based on gender).I think there are other solutions in order to improve women’s participation in electoral bodies besides the quota system. Changing the party’s law and the election law, stating that no party can run for elections without voting women among their candidates are better solutions. If women are in the parties’ lists, in all the parties and not just in some, women would have the chance to be candidates and would prove themselves towards that.
YO: - Is Islah going to nominate women candidates for the 2009 parliamentary elections?
TAK: - Yes, but the Islah party cannot do this without the law being changed. The election law and the party’s law need to establish the same basis for all parties. In any case, women’s participation when it comes to Islah, is the largest in Yemen (a recent report published by the Women National Committee showed that about 6 women versus 10 men participate in the higher positions of the Islah party, the largest Islamist opposition party in Yemen. The Islah party was placed as the first in terms of women’s participation in Yemen). For instance, in the Majlis al-Shura, which I am a member of, we are 13 women out of 130 men, about 20% are women. This is the reality, and not an authority that is definitely dead.
- Yemen Observer
This is the third of a series of interviews published by The Yemen Observer that aim to reflect the debate generated among some of these women, who are analysing the meanings of the VVC, the situation of women’s political participation in Yemen, and their responses to the obstacles they find. In this issue the Yemen Observer interviewed Tawkkol A. Karman, member of the Majlis al-Shura (Consultative Assembly) at the Islamist party Islah and chairwoman of Women Journalists Without Chains (WJWC), a non-governmental organization that works towards the promotion of freedom of speech and press.
Mother of three children, she studied Business Administration and has been a journalist for the past 11 years. Her father, one of the founders of the Muslim Brotherhood in Yemen, was Minister of Legal Affairs. A year ago she was among the several people that weekly, held sit-ins in front of the Yemeni Cabinet protesting against the banning of certain newspapers, the monopole of TV and radio stations by the government, the attack directed against journalists critical with the government, and in general, defending the right of expression. After 25 sit-ins they got 19 newspapers’ licences back.
Yemen Observer (YO): - When was the first time you heard about the Virtue Authority?
Tawkkol A. Karman (TAK): - This authority is a new authority, it just came to existence after a conference the ‘ulama held in July, but before that they did not exist. They came to existence after they met with the president, who allowed them to hold their conferences, so this authority is something coming from the presidential office.
In my opinion is not necessary, not even relevant, to talk about this authority anymore because is already dead. They held a conference or two, they announced their program, journalists refused it and opposed it, some of the ‘ulama did too, and that is as far as they got. They said they would gather once a year (the Vice Authority had previously proposed the establishment of permanent committees which would monitor vice-related activities of individuals and institutions, which the government rejected. In July they announced that they would hold annual meetings) so I consider them as another non-governmental organization (NGO).
YO: - What do you think about the fatwa they issued against women’s political participation and the quota system?
TAK: -I think this issue has become disproportionate in size. First of all, the booklet containing the fatwa does not make any sense, is as if it was written thousands of years ago. The second is that there are so many, too many fatwas that contradict that one fatwa and I do not understand why journalists and women’s organizations have focused that much on this one fatwa issued by the Virtue Authority.
I do not understand why no one speaks about the other fatwas, they only listened to what al-Zindani had to say but they should read other fatwas and speak about what other members of the ‘ulama think and not only of al-Zindani. Many ‘ulama support women’s right to become president if they want to, but now al-Zindani speaks and everyone gets upset, but he is just one person, one opinion. He has the right to express whatever he wants, is his own right of expression, but in the end we are the ones making out of his words and acts something bigger.
I think women’s organizations that denounced so much the fatwa and the Virtue Authority were wrong when they shouted about it. This authority became bigger because these denunciations made it bigger, but their fatwa does not make sense, is one among many others, and they are just another NGO.
YO: - But the Virtue Authority attacked women’s political participation and given that we are so close to the next parliamentary elections…
TAK: - Women’s political participation is a right we have by the Constitution, by law (Women –and man- can vote and be elected members of political institutions since 1960, when the Yemen Arab Republic (YAR) was established in the North. In the South, women obtained these and many other rights after the independence from the British colony and the formation of a Marxist-Leninist Republic, the People’s Democratic Republic Of Yemen (PDRY) in 1967.
The PDRY promoted women’s education, declared equality between genders, and offered an appropriate legal environment to assure these rights. For instance, the 1974 Family Code was considered one of the most advanced pieces of legislation in the entire region in relation to the rights it provided to women in terms of marriage, divorce and children’s custody. This code was made null after the unification of North and South in 1990, provoking a deep impact on the life of southerner women).
A fatwa, any fatwa, cannot affect or change these rights. The problem is instead related to a political decision regarding women’s participation: the problem is not the fatwa, is the political decision of the people in power that do not give a real possibility for women to participate. The Constitution, in its article number 2, says that Islam is the religion of this country and that women and men are to be treated equally. The right to participate, we already have it. Now the problem is how to practice what is written in the Constitution, which is another thing. A social explanation would make clear this obstacle, but this social problem has nothing to do with the fatwa.
If the fatwa would be a real problem, a real obstacle, then the State would have to go and make women like Amata al-Razak, (Minister of Social Affairs and Works) leave the Parliament if this was against our religion, which is not the case. I know this fatwa can be dangerous, but is just one fatwa. I know that what al-Zindani says can threaten women’s efforts, but again, this is just one person. We should also speak about other ‘ulama, like Muhammad Saif al-’Udaini, who also speaks about women’s participation explaining women’s rights in Islam. And this is just one example, there are many other opinions to be heard that support women. Al-Zindani is just one voice.
YO: -Why do you think this phenomenon is happening now?
TAK: -For two reasons: one is that the ruling party allowed them to exist as a way to attack the Islah party, which is the main opposition party, but the Virtue Authority is not part of Islah and Islah rejected this authority with a press release from the very beginning, and so did the Joint Meeting Parties (JMP), the opposition coalition Islah is part of. The second reason is that Saudi Arabia supports this authority and also the Shi’a in Yemen. When the president knew about this, he stopped the Virtue Authority (By the end of August the president declared his rejection and refusal of religious people becoming moral police in Yemen following the model of Saudi Arabia, al-Shar’a newspaper, 30 August, 2008). Now, have you heard anything else about the authority? Nothing, right? It just lasted for one month, just one.
YO:- What is your opinion about a quota system for women?
TAK: - I refuse the quota but not for the reasons the Virtue Authority said. I have other reasons. First, I consider that women have the capacity to access power on their own, the quota is not giving any right to women because women already have this right to participate. Second, the quota is like a gift from men to women, is not something obtained through merit. It is even worse than a gift, because is given as the last thing you can give. A third reason is that the quota system puts women in a lower position in relation to men, it stresses that they are not equal and that they are weak and not capable of being candidates on their own.
The quota defines women’s participation through women’s gender, and not because of their work (That the quota system hinders women’s participation is an idea widely extended and which departs from the fact that the quota, in this view, is against the principle of equal opportunity, is based on gender and not on ideas, merit or party platforms, is undemocratic and makes election processes be based on gender).I think there are other solutions in order to improve women’s participation in electoral bodies besides the quota system. Changing the party’s law and the election law, stating that no party can run for elections without voting women among their candidates are better solutions. If women are in the parties’ lists, in all the parties and not just in some, women would have the chance to be candidates and would prove themselves towards that.
YO: - Is Islah going to nominate women candidates for the 2009 parliamentary elections?
TAK: - Yes, but the Islah party cannot do this without the law being changed. The election law and the party’s law need to establish the same basis for all parties. In any case, women’s participation when it comes to Islah, is the largest in Yemen (a recent report published by the Women National Committee showed that about 6 women versus 10 men participate in the higher positions of the Islah party, the largest Islamist opposition party in Yemen. The Islah party was placed as the first in terms of women’s participation in Yemen). For instance, in the Majlis al-Shura, which I am a member of, we are 13 women out of 130 men, about 20% are women. This is the reality, and not an authority that is definitely dead.
- Yemen Observer
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Yemen: Women respond to the Vice and Virtue Committee-Part II
The Yemen Women Union is one of the oldest women’s organizations in Yemen. It was formed in 1990 by combining the northern and southern branches, which existed before unification.
This is the second part of a series of interviews that aim to reflect the opinion of several women’s organizations, members of political parties, researchers and journalists that have responded to the establishment of the Vice and Virtue Committee (VVC) and to the fatwa issued against women’s political participation in the context of the upcoming parliamentary elections that will be held in April 2009.
In this occasion we interviewed Ramzia al-Eryani, Chairwoman of the Yemen Women Union (YWU), a non-governamental organization that works in partnership with the government’s policies.
Al-Eryani studied in Ta’iiz, where she started from an early age to work at a Women’s Society teaching and focusing on illiteracy programs. She writes in newspapers since she was 15 years old and considers herself as one of the first women that wrote about women’s issues in Yemen.
She studied Philosophy, with concentrations in Sociology and Psychology in Cairo, and conducted research on political art. In 1980 she was one of the first women to work as a diplomat and in 1982 she moved to India, where she obtained her master’s from Nehru University. Al-Eryani has worked in the field of diplomacy also in Tunisia and in Washington DC. In 2000 she was called to work for the YWU and became the chairperson of the Union. In July 2008 Ramzia al-Eryany was again unanimously elected to hold the YWU’s leadership.
Yemen Observer (YO): - When did you first hear about the Vice and Virtue Committee?
Ramzia al-Eryani (RAE): -Actually, the very same day that they held their conference in July. Maybe I heard something about them before but I did not believe it, and when they held their conference and I read it in the newspapers I could not believe it either. That same night I called my colleagues and set a reunion for next day. Early that morning we prepared a letter that we sent right away to the speaker of the parliament.
In the letter we provided proof from the Qur’an in order to remind that women’s political participation has never been forbidden by Islam and that the fatwa issued by the VVC against a quota that would reserve 15 percent of the seats at the parliament for female candidates is against Islam. Al-Zindani wanted civil society to follow his Virtue Committee, but the society reacted in a very different way.
When they talked about virtue they only focused on women, on nothing else. We are treated as objects, not as human beings. But the Qur’an does not treat women like this, for men and women are the same thing. However, no one talks about the rights Islam provides to women. Our Prophet said that women must be educated but the Virtue Committee now acts against this. Women need the possibility to participate in the political life of the country.
YO: - Why do you think this is happening now?
RAE: - This is not something new, the people that conform the VVC have been arranging this since long time ago. Their conference congregated around 3000 people and they cannot organize such a gathering from one day to another. Before the VVC held their conference I did not hear about them in the sense of them being any sort of authority, but many people started to talk about acts here and there in the country that we now connect to this committee.
It is a coincidence that they held their conference the same week that the president declared that the war in Sa’adah was over, but this is just a coincidence because they have been preparing this long time ago. Somehow, they were given the possibility to become an authority and they are using it now, months before the parliamentary elections of 2009. It is a good moment for them, the government is busy with the end of the war in Sa’adah, with establishing the elections committee and with all the discussions that issue is provoking.
YO: - Besides the note to the speaker of the parliament, what other actions is the YWU taking regarding the VVC and in reference to a female quota?
RAE: - We are holding several seminars to increase women’s political participation and we will continue with these activities. We went to Ta’iiz, Mahwit, Shawa and many other places in Yemen training women, making them aware about the need of their political participation, giving them the tools to become candidates and explaining to them the rights they have following the Qur’an. Also we are holding workshops to create awareness about the families from Sa’adah that are in need of help after the war. This is our work as a non-governmental organisation but also we want to issue another fatwa against the one the VVC issued. We will not keep quiet. I am responsible for Yemeni women, and not only for myself.
YO: - What can you tell us about other women activist’s reactions?
RAE: -We are also working with women members of the Islah party and they are somehow divided. Some of them are against the VVC, some of them with it. There are women that do not agree with everything the VVC says, mainly with their stand on women’s political participation. It is necessary to remember that members of Islah from Hodeidah and Ta’iiz were candidates for the Local Council elections in 2006, so of course they have a different opinion on what is going on inside Islah.
On our side we are going to continue with our workshops in order to increase women’s participation in the upcoming elections and so as to generate women’s leadership at all levels. The workshops are our fight and this is one of our ways to raise awareness about women’s rights in Islam. We have to go ahead with our ideas. Women candidates for the 2009 parliamentary elections need to start building actions, awareness, political projects, from now.
Written By: Anahi Alviso-Marino
This is the second part of a series of interviews that aim to reflect the opinion of several women’s organizations, members of political parties, researchers and journalists that have responded to the establishment of the Vice and Virtue Committee (VVC) and to the fatwa issued against women’s political participation in the context of the upcoming parliamentary elections that will be held in April 2009.
In this occasion we interviewed Ramzia al-Eryani, Chairwoman of the Yemen Women Union (YWU), a non-governamental organization that works in partnership with the government’s policies.
Al-Eryani studied in Ta’iiz, where she started from an early age to work at a Women’s Society teaching and focusing on illiteracy programs. She writes in newspapers since she was 15 years old and considers herself as one of the first women that wrote about women’s issues in Yemen.
She studied Philosophy, with concentrations in Sociology and Psychology in Cairo, and conducted research on political art. In 1980 she was one of the first women to work as a diplomat and in 1982 she moved to India, where she obtained her master’s from Nehru University. Al-Eryani has worked in the field of diplomacy also in Tunisia and in Washington DC. In 2000 she was called to work for the YWU and became the chairperson of the Union. In July 2008 Ramzia al-Eryany was again unanimously elected to hold the YWU’s leadership.
Yemen Observer (YO): - When did you first hear about the Vice and Virtue Committee?
Ramzia al-Eryani (RAE): -Actually, the very same day that they held their conference in July. Maybe I heard something about them before but I did not believe it, and when they held their conference and I read it in the newspapers I could not believe it either. That same night I called my colleagues and set a reunion for next day. Early that morning we prepared a letter that we sent right away to the speaker of the parliament.
In the letter we provided proof from the Qur’an in order to remind that women’s political participation has never been forbidden by Islam and that the fatwa issued by the VVC against a quota that would reserve 15 percent of the seats at the parliament for female candidates is against Islam. Al-Zindani wanted civil society to follow his Virtue Committee, but the society reacted in a very different way.
When they talked about virtue they only focused on women, on nothing else. We are treated as objects, not as human beings. But the Qur’an does not treat women like this, for men and women are the same thing. However, no one talks about the rights Islam provides to women. Our Prophet said that women must be educated but the Virtue Committee now acts against this. Women need the possibility to participate in the political life of the country.
YO: - Why do you think this is happening now?
RAE: - This is not something new, the people that conform the VVC have been arranging this since long time ago. Their conference congregated around 3000 people and they cannot organize such a gathering from one day to another. Before the VVC held their conference I did not hear about them in the sense of them being any sort of authority, but many people started to talk about acts here and there in the country that we now connect to this committee.
It is a coincidence that they held their conference the same week that the president declared that the war in Sa’adah was over, but this is just a coincidence because they have been preparing this long time ago. Somehow, they were given the possibility to become an authority and they are using it now, months before the parliamentary elections of 2009. It is a good moment for them, the government is busy with the end of the war in Sa’adah, with establishing the elections committee and with all the discussions that issue is provoking.
YO: - Besides the note to the speaker of the parliament, what other actions is the YWU taking regarding the VVC and in reference to a female quota?
RAE: - We are holding several seminars to increase women’s political participation and we will continue with these activities. We went to Ta’iiz, Mahwit, Shawa and many other places in Yemen training women, making them aware about the need of their political participation, giving them the tools to become candidates and explaining to them the rights they have following the Qur’an. Also we are holding workshops to create awareness about the families from Sa’adah that are in need of help after the war. This is our work as a non-governmental organisation but also we want to issue another fatwa against the one the VVC issued. We will not keep quiet. I am responsible for Yemeni women, and not only for myself.
YO: - What can you tell us about other women activist’s reactions?
RAE: -We are also working with women members of the Islah party and they are somehow divided. Some of them are against the VVC, some of them with it. There are women that do not agree with everything the VVC says, mainly with their stand on women’s political participation. It is necessary to remember that members of Islah from Hodeidah and Ta’iiz were candidates for the Local Council elections in 2006, so of course they have a different opinion on what is going on inside Islah.
On our side we are going to continue with our workshops in order to increase women’s participation in the upcoming elections and so as to generate women’s leadership at all levels. The workshops are our fight and this is one of our ways to raise awareness about women’s rights in Islam. We have to go ahead with our ideas. Women candidates for the 2009 parliamentary elections need to start building actions, awareness, political projects, from now.
Written By: Anahi Alviso-Marino
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Yemen: Women respond to the Vice and Virtue Committee-Part I
On July 15th Yemeni religious and tribal leaders held a conference in which they announced to an audience of some 2000 male attendees their intention to create an authority to protect virtue and fight against vice, which they called the Vice and Virtue Committee (VVC).
This authority aims at monitoring the activities of individuals and institutions in order to report them to the police if they consider that they transgress Islamic precepts. One of the first official actions taken by this committee was to issue a fatwa or legal pronouncement against women’s political participation, namely, against the quota system that the government wants to implement in response to women’s pressure to acquire representation in the political institutions.
The quota, which is part of the amendments that the government proposed to the electoral law, would allocate 15 percent of the seats at the Parliament that would be reserved to women candidates. Several women’s organizations, members of political parties, researchers and journalists have widely responded to the establishment of the Vice and Virtue authority and to the fatwa issued against women’s political participation, especially since the next parliamentary elections will be held in April 2009 and the electoral campaign has definitely started. We wish to publish a series of interviews held with some of these women who are analysing the meanings of the VVC and responding to their actions.
In this issue we interviewed Hooria Mashoor, Deputy Chairperson of the Women National Committee (WNC), the technical committee of the government’s Supreme Council for Women Affairs. Mashoor, who comes from Aden, works at the WNC since the year 2000. She has studied in Germany and Egypt and worked as a teacher and as a trainer at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
Yemen Observer (YO) -When did you first hear about the Vice and Virtue Committee?
Hooria Mashoor (HM) - Three months before they held the meeting that established the authority in July, I started hearing about groups of people ‘working for the prevention of vice.’ I first knew about them through a colleague from the WNC who went to Hodeidhah for work.
When she arrived to the hotel she was asked by a group of men for her mahram or male companion and was told that she was not supposed to be alone at the hotel. She called us saying that she did not know what to do and that a group claiming to be official was asking her for a mahram if she wanted to stay at the hotel. They did not announce themselves as members of the VVC, because this authority was not yet presented as such, but they were working for the prevention of vice and the spread of virtue.
I also heard that some two or three months ago religious leaders, members of what now is known as the ‘virtue committee,’ went to the presidential office to meet the president. He gave them the green light to do ‘what is good for society.’
I do not know how they presented their project to the president, what they explained and what they omitted, but however they did it, they obtained the green light to carry out their activities and to establish their committee.
This is shocking because we believe that there is a state with state’s bodies that must control this, but this organization is not part of the state. Also, I do not know if the president was well aware about their ideas related to the quota, because it goes against the work of the government.
YO - Why do you think this authority emerges now?
HM - I consider that this is a political action, a political strategy as we approach the parliamentary elections which are just around the corner (April 2009). This political action is aimed at diving Islah, the main and biggest opposition party (Hizb al Islah, commonly referred as the biggest Islamist party in Yemen, is one the parties that conform the main opposition coalition, the Joint Meeting Parties (JMP) together with the Yemeni Socialist Party (YSP), Nasserite Unionists Political Party (NUPP), Federation of Popular Yemeni Forces (PF), the Al Haq party and the Arab Baath Socialist Party). The Virtue Committee has a political agenda, for they are presenting their authority and acting against women’s political participation just before the upcoming parliamentary elections. In July 15th they presented a political agenda: the quota is not against virtue, is a political issue.
They are also against women working and they want to send them back home, which would stop the development of the society. We are a poor country and one of the causes is that women do not fully participate in the economy of the country. In addition to this, when we are just getting to the point of implementing the quota, all of the sudden this committee issues a fatwa against it, but they will not stop us because the quota is a policy from the government, is part of the government’s program. I also consider that the VVC is a political and not a religious committee because they asked the president to continue using military means to stop the war in Sa’adah, to stop the al-Huthi rebels (The Sa’adah conflict entered this year its fifth year of a war in which the Shi’a al-Huthi rebels (followers of the Zaydi doctrine) fight to reinstate the Imamate that was overthrown in 1962.
In july 2008 president Ali Abdullah Saleh announced the “end of the war”). Approximately three days later the president declares that the war is over. What is interesting is that, before unification (1990), these same political figures were against unification and now they ask the president to maintain the country united.
YO -Is the Virtue Committee a legitimate authority to issue a fatwa?
HM -One member of the parliament e-mailed me questioning under which umbrella this committee is working. Even in the General People’s Congress’s (GPC) members of the party question this authority (The GPC is the ruling party since the unification of the country in 1990. Ali Abdullah Saleh, president and head of the party, is in power since 1978, when he became president of the Yemen Arab Republic in the north).
We also question them and we will send a letter to the official ‘ulama (group of religious leaders and scholars) responsible to issue a formal fatwa (See article “Yemeni female political activists fight back,” The Yemen Observer, 12 August, 2008). We want a fatwa from them, the official authority, if they can prove that the quota is against Islam.
Some ‘ulama are part of the VVC, but the official ‘ulama are the only ones that can actually issue such thing. Some of the ‘ulama also support the idea of increasing women’s participation in politics with the quota system, so their vision on this issue varies. Above all, what is risky is that they are using our religion, which is a fundamental factor in our society, to convince people about things that are not present in Islam or in the Qur’an, and that our work or the work of human rights activists goes against Islam, but human right activist here are Muslims as well.
YO –What do you now about how is the VVC being financed?
HM -We were amazed because thousands of religious men came from all over the country and also from Saudi Arabia to a conference that cost YR 200 million. Al-Eman University, al-Zindani (Sheikh al-Zindani leads the “conservative” stream inside the Islah Party, is the Chairman of the Islah Party’s Shura Council, rector of the Islamic Iman University in Sana’a, and was elected as president of the Vice and Virtue Committee in August 2008) and numerous tribal and rich men contributed economically to the conference. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is helping them and members from the Saudi Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice also attended the event. We think that a great part of their economic funds come from this source.
YO -What is and has been the work of the Women National Committee towards the quota system?
HM -We worked on the amendment of the electoral law and the political participation law, that is, in the amendment of the constitution and the pertinent laws in order for them to include a quota for women of 15 percent. We asked for the minimum in the short term, but for the long term we want a quota of 30 percent. If the parliament passes the quota and amends the laws considering our demands, then the entire problem with the Virtue Committee will be over. It would be embarrassing for the GPC to go backwards, and it would be very difficult for them to go back. That is why our main focus now is to pass the law. The WNC is a policy maker institution, we also work with grassroots organizations like NGOs but our focus is to pass the quota as a law.
YO -How are other women reacting to the quota and the VVC?
HM -Some time ago some women and I met at Amal Basha’s office (head of the Non-governmental organisation Sisters Arab Forum) to discuss the issue of the quota and how to apply it. We all agreed on the fact that we need to change the system of election (the lists) but also we realised that perhaps we cannot change this completely, so at least we need the quota. Women members of Islah were present and they also said that the JMP wants to change the system of election, but that needs to go first and then the quota. I asked them ‘are you not going to confront your party on this issue?’ and one of them responded that this is an internal and a different issue, which needed a different type of solution. I respected that because we all have different ways of working. In any case, if we make the quota become a law, then no one will be able to change it. And I can assure you of one thing: no one will stop us in this.
Written By: Anahi Alviso-Marino
This authority aims at monitoring the activities of individuals and institutions in order to report them to the police if they consider that they transgress Islamic precepts. One of the first official actions taken by this committee was to issue a fatwa or legal pronouncement against women’s political participation, namely, against the quota system that the government wants to implement in response to women’s pressure to acquire representation in the political institutions.
The quota, which is part of the amendments that the government proposed to the electoral law, would allocate 15 percent of the seats at the Parliament that would be reserved to women candidates. Several women’s organizations, members of political parties, researchers and journalists have widely responded to the establishment of the Vice and Virtue authority and to the fatwa issued against women’s political participation, especially since the next parliamentary elections will be held in April 2009 and the electoral campaign has definitely started. We wish to publish a series of interviews held with some of these women who are analysing the meanings of the VVC and responding to their actions.
In this issue we interviewed Hooria Mashoor, Deputy Chairperson of the Women National Committee (WNC), the technical committee of the government’s Supreme Council for Women Affairs. Mashoor, who comes from Aden, works at the WNC since the year 2000. She has studied in Germany and Egypt and worked as a teacher and as a trainer at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
Yemen Observer (YO) -When did you first hear about the Vice and Virtue Committee?
Hooria Mashoor (HM) - Three months before they held the meeting that established the authority in July, I started hearing about groups of people ‘working for the prevention of vice.’ I first knew about them through a colleague from the WNC who went to Hodeidhah for work.
When she arrived to the hotel she was asked by a group of men for her mahram or male companion and was told that she was not supposed to be alone at the hotel. She called us saying that she did not know what to do and that a group claiming to be official was asking her for a mahram if she wanted to stay at the hotel. They did not announce themselves as members of the VVC, because this authority was not yet presented as such, but they were working for the prevention of vice and the spread of virtue.
I also heard that some two or three months ago religious leaders, members of what now is known as the ‘virtue committee,’ went to the presidential office to meet the president. He gave them the green light to do ‘what is good for society.’
I do not know how they presented their project to the president, what they explained and what they omitted, but however they did it, they obtained the green light to carry out their activities and to establish their committee.
This is shocking because we believe that there is a state with state’s bodies that must control this, but this organization is not part of the state. Also, I do not know if the president was well aware about their ideas related to the quota, because it goes against the work of the government.
YO - Why do you think this authority emerges now?
HM - I consider that this is a political action, a political strategy as we approach the parliamentary elections which are just around the corner (April 2009). This political action is aimed at diving Islah, the main and biggest opposition party (Hizb al Islah, commonly referred as the biggest Islamist party in Yemen, is one the parties that conform the main opposition coalition, the Joint Meeting Parties (JMP) together with the Yemeni Socialist Party (YSP), Nasserite Unionists Political Party (NUPP), Federation of Popular Yemeni Forces (PF), the Al Haq party and the Arab Baath Socialist Party). The Virtue Committee has a political agenda, for they are presenting their authority and acting against women’s political participation just before the upcoming parliamentary elections. In July 15th they presented a political agenda: the quota is not against virtue, is a political issue.
They are also against women working and they want to send them back home, which would stop the development of the society. We are a poor country and one of the causes is that women do not fully participate in the economy of the country. In addition to this, when we are just getting to the point of implementing the quota, all of the sudden this committee issues a fatwa against it, but they will not stop us because the quota is a policy from the government, is part of the government’s program. I also consider that the VVC is a political and not a religious committee because they asked the president to continue using military means to stop the war in Sa’adah, to stop the al-Huthi rebels (The Sa’adah conflict entered this year its fifth year of a war in which the Shi’a al-Huthi rebels (followers of the Zaydi doctrine) fight to reinstate the Imamate that was overthrown in 1962.
In july 2008 president Ali Abdullah Saleh announced the “end of the war”). Approximately three days later the president declares that the war is over. What is interesting is that, before unification (1990), these same political figures were against unification and now they ask the president to maintain the country united.
YO -Is the Virtue Committee a legitimate authority to issue a fatwa?
HM -One member of the parliament e-mailed me questioning under which umbrella this committee is working. Even in the General People’s Congress’s (GPC) members of the party question this authority (The GPC is the ruling party since the unification of the country in 1990. Ali Abdullah Saleh, president and head of the party, is in power since 1978, when he became president of the Yemen Arab Republic in the north).
We also question them and we will send a letter to the official ‘ulama (group of religious leaders and scholars) responsible to issue a formal fatwa (See article “Yemeni female political activists fight back,” The Yemen Observer, 12 August, 2008). We want a fatwa from them, the official authority, if they can prove that the quota is against Islam.
Some ‘ulama are part of the VVC, but the official ‘ulama are the only ones that can actually issue such thing. Some of the ‘ulama also support the idea of increasing women’s participation in politics with the quota system, so their vision on this issue varies. Above all, what is risky is that they are using our religion, which is a fundamental factor in our society, to convince people about things that are not present in Islam or in the Qur’an, and that our work or the work of human rights activists goes against Islam, but human right activist here are Muslims as well.
YO –What do you now about how is the VVC being financed?
HM -We were amazed because thousands of religious men came from all over the country and also from Saudi Arabia to a conference that cost YR 200 million. Al-Eman University, al-Zindani (Sheikh al-Zindani leads the “conservative” stream inside the Islah Party, is the Chairman of the Islah Party’s Shura Council, rector of the Islamic Iman University in Sana’a, and was elected as president of the Vice and Virtue Committee in August 2008) and numerous tribal and rich men contributed economically to the conference. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is helping them and members from the Saudi Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice also attended the event. We think that a great part of their economic funds come from this source.
YO -What is and has been the work of the Women National Committee towards the quota system?
HM -We worked on the amendment of the electoral law and the political participation law, that is, in the amendment of the constitution and the pertinent laws in order for them to include a quota for women of 15 percent. We asked for the minimum in the short term, but for the long term we want a quota of 30 percent. If the parliament passes the quota and amends the laws considering our demands, then the entire problem with the Virtue Committee will be over. It would be embarrassing for the GPC to go backwards, and it would be very difficult for them to go back. That is why our main focus now is to pass the law. The WNC is a policy maker institution, we also work with grassroots organizations like NGOs but our focus is to pass the quota as a law.
YO -How are other women reacting to the quota and the VVC?
HM -Some time ago some women and I met at Amal Basha’s office (head of the Non-governmental organisation Sisters Arab Forum) to discuss the issue of the quota and how to apply it. We all agreed on the fact that we need to change the system of election (the lists) but also we realised that perhaps we cannot change this completely, so at least we need the quota. Women members of Islah were present and they also said that the JMP wants to change the system of election, but that needs to go first and then the quota. I asked them ‘are you not going to confront your party on this issue?’ and one of them responded that this is an internal and a different issue, which needed a different type of solution. I respected that because we all have different ways of working. In any case, if we make the quota become a law, then no one will be able to change it. And I can assure you of one thing: no one will stop us in this.
Written By: Anahi Alviso-Marino
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Yemen: Yemeni clerics to form religious police
Hardline clerics attend the ceremony at which the formation of the Authority for Protecting Virtue and Fighting Vice was announced. Mohammed al Qadhi, The National.
SANA’A: Activists in Yemen say the establishment of a religious police force, under the banner of promoting virtue and curbing vice, is a war on women and their rights.
Some two thousand clerics led by Sheikh Abdulmajeed al Zindani, the hardline rector of the Islamic Al Eman University, and a number of tribal dignitaries met in Sana’a last week and announced the establishment of The Authority for Protecting Virtue and Fighting Vice.
Women’s rights activists immediately condemned the move.
“The objective of this commission is to wage a war on feminists and women’s rights,” said Hooriah Mashhoor, vice chair of the governmental Women’s National Committee. “We are very concerned to see a religious authority or police working beyond the function of state institutions,” she said.
The authority will be run by a central committee of 42 clerics from the powerful Yemeni Clerics Association and will scour the streets looking for “immoral” behaviour, such as intimacy between unrelated men and women and the consumption of alcohol. The authority will then report the offences to police.
Hasan Abdullah al Sheikh, the deputy minister for Religious Guidance and Endowment, said the commission will not have the authority to imprison or otherwise prosecute “offenders”.
“The commission can just give advice and report on immoral incidents but cannot take action to prevent that,” he said.
A number of other non-governmental organisations also appealed to the government to prevent the establishment of the religious authority.
“The establishment of such a commission is an infringement on the constitution and law,” Intellectuals for Social Peace and Stability said in a statement. “It means abolishing democracy and the multiparty system, and pushing the country into chaos and disorder, which subjects it to foreign intervention under the pretext of curbing extremism and terrorism.”
At the meeting, the clerics also issued a fatwa, or religious edict, banning women from participating in politics and forbidding the implementation of a proposed quota that would guarantee 15 per cent of parliamentary seats for women. The quota was pledged by Ali Abdullah Saleh, the president, when he was running for election and is currently in discussion in the Shoura (consultative council).
Mrs Mashhoor condemned the fatwa and said it was a blow to the progress made in recent years to empower women in Yemen, particularly in the political sphere. She said the Women’s National Committee will write to Mr Saleh urging him to fulfil his pledge.
“We have made some good steps to make the people accept women’s rights and a women’s quota in elections, but this group of extremist clerics wants to undo all these efforts,” she said.
Sheikh Zindani, who is accused by the United States and the United Nations of financing terrorism, said the religious authority will ask the government to shut down any workplaces where alcohol and prostitution is present. “We will never be silent towards any such place, wherever it is,” he said.
Hamud al Tharehi, a hardline cleric and leading exponent of the authority, said “moral corruption” in Yemen had become institutionalised.
“The sale and trade in alcoholic beverages, hashish, and drugs, the disappearance and escape of schoolgirls through middlemen to places to practise vice, and the spread of CDs of nude dancing with idlers coming from Gulf countries – all this has brought dishonour to Yemen and distorted its image,” Mr Tharehi said.
In a press release issued at the meeting in Sana’a, the clerics outlined a catalogue of “vices” that included: performances by female singers, alcohol, nightclubs, fashion shows, mixed-sex dancing, sending female students to study in foreign countries without companions from their families and coeducation in schools and universities.
Already vigilante groups have forced restaurants and hotels that serve alcohol or permit socialising between men and women to close.
Mr Tharehi denied that he or any of his associates were involved in threatening the venues, but praised those who were. “They have good faith,” he said. “There are individuals in [the cities of] Hodeidah and Aden who have good faith.
But the establishment of a religious police and the possible abandonment of the proposed quota system are not the only setbacks facing women’s rights in Yemen.
Last week the Committee of Islamic Sharia parliamentary group refused to incorporate amendments presented by the government that would have made men and women legally equal in blood money, the practice in which financial compensation is paid to the family of a person killed on purpose or by accident. As it stands, blood money paid for the death of a woman is half that for a man.
Parliament is also debating a law that would introduce an automatic one-year prison sentence for both men and women who are found meeting in private, if they are not related.
“Women study to get jobs, and considering they will be forbidden from being alone with unrelated men at their workplace, this is really crazy. This is a backwards step for human rights in Yemen,” Mrs Mashhoor said.
Analysts said there are political motives behind the establishment of the committee.
“The regime is ensuring its continuity in power through its coalition with the religious establishment,” said Abdullah Obal, secretary general of the opposition leftist Yemeni Unionist party.
He said the virtue commission and the various amendments currently being discussed are driving Yemen backwards.
“These amendments are frightening and are driving us towards a theocratic state,” he said.
“They mean men will not be able to go outside with their female relatives without having legal documents to prove [they are related]. Women will not be able to take a taxi, for instance, without a male companion. This is really horrible.”
---The National
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Saudi Arabia: Religious police hit back over woman held in cafe
RIYADH - Saudi Arabia’s religious police hit back on Tuesday at critics of their arrest of a businesswoman in a Starbucks cafe for mixing with a male colleague, threatening to sue a journalist.
The powerful Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, or religious police, charged the Saudi woman was making ‘suspicious gestures’ while in the man’s company and broke the law on several counts, in a statement published in the local press.
The commission ‘reserves the right of its members ... to claim their legal right from columnist Abdullah Al Alami who accused them of abduction,’ it said.
The religious police, commonly known as Muttawa, said Alami, a columnist for the daily Al Watan, had also accused them of strip-searching the woman, ‘which is no less reprehensible than ... the crime of kidnapping’.
The businesswoman, a 40-year-old financial consultant, was quoted in the English-language daily Arab News on February 5 as saying she was detained and strip-searched by the Muttawa the previous day.
She had been sitting in a Starbucks coffee shop with an unrelated man, an activity which is taboo in ultra-conservative Saudi Arabia.
The woman, named only as Yara, said she was holding a business meeting with the man in a branch of Starbucks in Riyadh, in a section reserved for families.
Yara, a mother of three, said she was taken to a Riyadh prison, strip-searched and forced to sign a confession to having been caught alone with an unrelated man.
She said the Muttawa released her several hours later after her husband intervened. The man with whom Yara had coffee, an unnamed Syrian financial analyst, was also arrested.
Newspapers said the man was released the next day.
In its statement, the 5,000-strong religious police accused Yara of violating both the law and Islamic tenets by flying unaccompanied from Jeddah to Riyadh and sitting alone with an unrelated man in a public place in a section reserved for families.
The religious police said its members went to the coffee shop after receiving information that the woman did not have her head covered and was wearing make-up and making ‘suspicious gestures’ while in the man’s company.
A UN expert on women’s rights said last week at the end of a visit to Saudi Arabia that she had heard accounts of serious discrimination against women and abuses by the Muttawa.
‘The Muttawa are said to be responsible for serious human rights abuses in harassing, threatening and arresting women who ‘deviate from accepted norms’,’ said Yakin Erturk, the United Nations special rapporteur on violence against women, citing Yara’s arrest during her visit.
Women in Saudi Arabia, which applies a rigorous doctrine of Islam known as Wahhabism, face a host of constraints, including a ban on driving.
They are forced to cover from head to toe in public, and can not mix with men other than relatives or travel without written permission from their male guardian.
(AFP)
The powerful Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, or religious police, charged the Saudi woman was making ‘suspicious gestures’ while in the man’s company and broke the law on several counts, in a statement published in the local press.
The commission ‘reserves the right of its members ... to claim their legal right from columnist Abdullah Al Alami who accused them of abduction,’ it said.
The religious police, commonly known as Muttawa, said Alami, a columnist for the daily Al Watan, had also accused them of strip-searching the woman, ‘which is no less reprehensible than ... the crime of kidnapping’.
The businesswoman, a 40-year-old financial consultant, was quoted in the English-language daily Arab News on February 5 as saying she was detained and strip-searched by the Muttawa the previous day.
She had been sitting in a Starbucks coffee shop with an unrelated man, an activity which is taboo in ultra-conservative Saudi Arabia.
The woman, named only as Yara, said she was holding a business meeting with the man in a branch of Starbucks in Riyadh, in a section reserved for families.
Yara, a mother of three, said she was taken to a Riyadh prison, strip-searched and forced to sign a confession to having been caught alone with an unrelated man.
She said the Muttawa released her several hours later after her husband intervened. The man with whom Yara had coffee, an unnamed Syrian financial analyst, was also arrested.
Newspapers said the man was released the next day.
In its statement, the 5,000-strong religious police accused Yara of violating both the law and Islamic tenets by flying unaccompanied from Jeddah to Riyadh and sitting alone with an unrelated man in a public place in a section reserved for families.
The religious police said its members went to the coffee shop after receiving information that the woman did not have her head covered and was wearing make-up and making ‘suspicious gestures’ while in the man’s company.
A UN expert on women’s rights said last week at the end of a visit to Saudi Arabia that she had heard accounts of serious discrimination against women and abuses by the Muttawa.
‘The Muttawa are said to be responsible for serious human rights abuses in harassing, threatening and arresting women who ‘deviate from accepted norms’,’ said Yakin Erturk, the United Nations special rapporteur on violence against women, citing Yara’s arrest during her visit.
Women in Saudi Arabia, which applies a rigorous doctrine of Islam known as Wahhabism, face a host of constraints, including a ban on driving.
They are forced to cover from head to toe in public, and can not mix with men other than relatives or travel without written permission from their male guardian.
(AFP)
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Saudi Arabia: Women complain of discrimination, abuse
RIYADH - A UN expert on women’s rights said on Wednesday she had heard accounts of serious discrimination against women and abuses by religious police during a visit to ultra-conservative Saudi Arabia.
There also appears to be no timeframe for lifting a ban on women’s driving, Yakin Erturk, the United Nations special rapporteur on violence against women, told reporters at the end of a 10-day visit to the Muslim kingdom.
Erturk said that while some Saudi women she met during her visit at the government’s invitation expressed satisfaction with their lives, ‘others have raised concerns of serious levels of discriminatory practices against women that compromise their rights and dignity as full human beings.’
Others related ‘the domestic abuse they systematically encounter with little prospect of redress.’
Erturk said that progress had been made in women’s access to education, but there has been no comparable increase in their participation in the labour force, mainly due to sex segregation in the workplace, and they are ‘particularly excluded from decision-making positions.’
She said many of her interlocutors complained about the behaviour of the religious police, or Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice who are commonly known as Muttawa and enforce a strict Islamic moral code.
‘The Muttawa are said to be responsible for serious human rights abuses in harassing, threatening and arresting women who ‘deviate from accepted norms’,’ the UN official said, citing an incident reported during her visit in which they arrested a businesswoman for sitting in a coffee shop with a male colleague in Riyadh.
Erturk said she had not met any officials from the religious police during her visit, which followed a report by the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women which stated that women in the kingdom were the victims of systematic and pervasive discrimination across all aspects of social life.
Women in Saudi Arabia, which applies a rigorous doctrine of Islam known as Wahhabism, face a host of constraints, including the driving ban. They are forced to cover from head to toe in public, and cannot mix with men other than relatives or travel without written permission from their male guardian.
Erturk, who met officials and human rights groups, said she had raised the driving ban during her talks but did not feel there was a specific timeframe for solving the issue.
What matters in enabling women to drive is that this would give them freedom to move and work, she said.
Erturk, who will report to the UN Human Rights Council, said recently adopted judicial reforms which foresee the establishment of family courts, together with a draft law on domestic violence, were ‘promising initiatives,’ but more needed to be done to combat violence against women.
This includes adoption of a legal framework based on international human rights standards that would cover violence and family matters, establishment of a ‘national machinery for women’ to intervene in cases of violence, and ‘positive action policies and plans’ to empower women.
(AFP)
There also appears to be no timeframe for lifting a ban on women’s driving, Yakin Erturk, the United Nations special rapporteur on violence against women, told reporters at the end of a 10-day visit to the Muslim kingdom.
Erturk said that while some Saudi women she met during her visit at the government’s invitation expressed satisfaction with their lives, ‘others have raised concerns of serious levels of discriminatory practices against women that compromise their rights and dignity as full human beings.’
Others related ‘the domestic abuse they systematically encounter with little prospect of redress.’
Erturk said that progress had been made in women’s access to education, but there has been no comparable increase in their participation in the labour force, mainly due to sex segregation in the workplace, and they are ‘particularly excluded from decision-making positions.’
She said many of her interlocutors complained about the behaviour of the religious police, or Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice who are commonly known as Muttawa and enforce a strict Islamic moral code.
‘The Muttawa are said to be responsible for serious human rights abuses in harassing, threatening and arresting women who ‘deviate from accepted norms’,’ the UN official said, citing an incident reported during her visit in which they arrested a businesswoman for sitting in a coffee shop with a male colleague in Riyadh.
Erturk said she had not met any officials from the religious police during her visit, which followed a report by the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women which stated that women in the kingdom were the victims of systematic and pervasive discrimination across all aspects of social life.
Women in Saudi Arabia, which applies a rigorous doctrine of Islam known as Wahhabism, face a host of constraints, including the driving ban. They are forced to cover from head to toe in public, and cannot mix with men other than relatives or travel without written permission from their male guardian.
Erturk, who met officials and human rights groups, said she had raised the driving ban during her talks but did not feel there was a specific timeframe for solving the issue.
What matters in enabling women to drive is that this would give them freedom to move and work, she said.
Erturk, who will report to the UN Human Rights Council, said recently adopted judicial reforms which foresee the establishment of family courts, together with a draft law on domestic violence, were ‘promising initiatives,’ but more needed to be done to combat violence against women.
This includes adoption of a legal framework based on international human rights standards that would cover violence and family matters, establishment of a ‘national machinery for women’ to intervene in cases of violence, and ‘positive action policies and plans’ to empower women.
(AFP)
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Saudi Arabia: Religious police arrest mother for sitting with a man
A 37-year-old American businesswoman and married mother of three is seeking justice after she was thrown in jail by Saudi Arabia's religious police for sitting with a male colleague at a Starbucks coffee shop in Riyadh.
Yara, who does not want her last name published for fear of retribution, was bruised and crying when she was freed from a day in prison after she was strip-searched, threatened and forced to sign false confessions by the Kingdom's “Mutaween” police.
Her story offers a rare first-hand glimpse of the discrimination faced by women living in Saudi Arabia. In her first interview with the foreign press, Yara told The Times that she would remain in Saudi Arabia to challenge its harsh enforcement of conservative Islam rather than return to America.
“If I want to make a difference I have to stick around. If I leave they win. I can't just surrender to the terrorist acts of these people,” said Yara, who moved to Jeddah eight years ago with her husband, a prominent businessman.
Her ordeal began with a routine visit to the new Riyadh offices of her finance company, where she is a managing partner.
The electricity temporarily cut out, so Yara and her colleagues — who are all men — went to a nearby Starbucks to use its wireless internet.
She sat in a curtained booth with her business partner in the café's “family” area, the only seats where men and women are allowed to mix.
For Yara, it was a matter of convenience. But in Saudi Arabia, public contact between unrelated men and women is strictly prohibited.
“Some men came up to us with very long beards and white dresses. They asked ‘Why are you here together?'. I explained about the power being out in our office. They got very angry and told me what I was doing was a great sin,” recalled Yara, who wears an abaya and headscarf, like most Saudi women.
The men were from Saudi Arabia's Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, a police force of several thousand men charged with enforcing dress codes, sex segregation and the observance of prayers.
Yara, whose parents are Jordanian and grew up in Salt Lake City, once believed that life in Saudi Arabia was becoming more liberal. But on Monday the religious police took her mobile phone, pushed her into a cab and drove her to Malaz prison in Riyadh. She was interrogated, strip-searched and forced to sign and fingerprint a series of confessions pleading guilty to her “crime”.
“They took me into a filthy bathroom, full of water and dirt. They made me take off my clothes and squat and they threw my clothes in this slush and made me put them back on,” she said. Eventually she was taken before a judge.
“He said 'You are sinful and you are going to burn in hell'. I told him I was sorry. I was very submissive. I had given up. I felt hopeless,” she said.
Yara's husband, Hatim, used his political contacts in Jeddah to track her whereabouts. He was able to secure her release.
“I was lucky. I met other women in that prison who don't have the connections I did,” she said. Her story has received rare coverage in Saudi Arabia, where the press has been sharply critical of the police.
Yara was visited yesterday by officials from the American Embassy, who promised they would file a report.
An embassy official told The Times that it was being treated as “an internal Saudi matter” and refused to comment on her case.
Tough justice
— Saudi Arabia’s Mutaween has 10,000 members in almost 500 offices
— Ahmad al-Bluwi, 50, died in custody in 2007 in the city of Tabuk after he invited a woman outside his immediate family into his car
— In 2007 the victim of a gang rape was sentenced to 200 lashes and six years in jail for having been in an unrelated man’s car at the time. She was pardoned by King Abdullah, although he maintained the sentence had been fair
Source: The Times Archives
Sonia Verma in Dubai
Yara, who does not want her last name published for fear of retribution, was bruised and crying when she was freed from a day in prison after she was strip-searched, threatened and forced to sign false confessions by the Kingdom's “Mutaween” police.
Her story offers a rare first-hand glimpse of the discrimination faced by women living in Saudi Arabia. In her first interview with the foreign press, Yara told The Times that she would remain in Saudi Arabia to challenge its harsh enforcement of conservative Islam rather than return to America.
“If I want to make a difference I have to stick around. If I leave they win. I can't just surrender to the terrorist acts of these people,” said Yara, who moved to Jeddah eight years ago with her husband, a prominent businessman.
Her ordeal began with a routine visit to the new Riyadh offices of her finance company, where she is a managing partner.
The electricity temporarily cut out, so Yara and her colleagues — who are all men — went to a nearby Starbucks to use its wireless internet.
She sat in a curtained booth with her business partner in the café's “family” area, the only seats where men and women are allowed to mix.
For Yara, it was a matter of convenience. But in Saudi Arabia, public contact between unrelated men and women is strictly prohibited.
“Some men came up to us with very long beards and white dresses. They asked ‘Why are you here together?'. I explained about the power being out in our office. They got very angry and told me what I was doing was a great sin,” recalled Yara, who wears an abaya and headscarf, like most Saudi women.
The men were from Saudi Arabia's Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, a police force of several thousand men charged with enforcing dress codes, sex segregation and the observance of prayers.
Yara, whose parents are Jordanian and grew up in Salt Lake City, once believed that life in Saudi Arabia was becoming more liberal. But on Monday the religious police took her mobile phone, pushed her into a cab and drove her to Malaz prison in Riyadh. She was interrogated, strip-searched and forced to sign and fingerprint a series of confessions pleading guilty to her “crime”.
“They took me into a filthy bathroom, full of water and dirt. They made me take off my clothes and squat and they threw my clothes in this slush and made me put them back on,” she said. Eventually she was taken before a judge.
“He said 'You are sinful and you are going to burn in hell'. I told him I was sorry. I was very submissive. I had given up. I felt hopeless,” she said.
Yara's husband, Hatim, used his political contacts in Jeddah to track her whereabouts. He was able to secure her release.
“I was lucky. I met other women in that prison who don't have the connections I did,” she said. Her story has received rare coverage in Saudi Arabia, where the press has been sharply critical of the police.
Yara was visited yesterday by officials from the American Embassy, who promised they would file a report.
An embassy official told The Times that it was being treated as “an internal Saudi matter” and refused to comment on her case.
Tough justice
— Saudi Arabia’s Mutaween has 10,000 members in almost 500 offices
— Ahmad al-Bluwi, 50, died in custody in 2007 in the city of Tabuk after he invited a woman outside his immediate family into his car
— In 2007 the victim of a gang rape was sentenced to 200 lashes and six years in jail for having been in an unrelated man’s car at the time. She was pardoned by King Abdullah, although he maintained the sentence had been fair
Source: The Times Archives
Sonia Verma in Dubai
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