Free Republic

When a Saudi religious policeman sauntered about an amusement park in the eastern Saudi Arabian city of Al-Mubarraz looking for unmarried couples illegally socializing, he probably wasn’t expecting much opposition. But when he approached a young, 20-something couple meandering through the park together, he received an unprecedented whooping. A member of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, the Saudi religious police known locally as the Hai’a, asked the couple to confirm their identities and relationship to one another, as it is a crime in Saudi Arabia for unmarried men and women to mix. For unknown...

It was a scene Saudi women’s rights activists have dreamt of for years. When a Saudi religious policeman sauntered about an amusement park in the eastern Saudi Arabian city of Al-Mubarraz looking for unmarried couples illegally socializing, he probably wasn’t expecting much opposition. But when he approached a young, 20-something couple meandering through the park together, he received an unprecedented whooping. A member of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, the Saudi religious police known locally as the Hai’a, asked the couple to confirm their identities and relationship to one another, as it is a...

Khalas: (Arabic): enough, no more, finished, that's it, the end. It is with very mixed feelings that I write this, my last post. The Religious Policeman has been commenting on Saudi Arabia, off and on, for two years. This is post number 400. Therefore, in the course of two years, I have written the equivalent of a very thick book. A number of commentors and emailers have also, over that time, very kindly suggested that I should write a book. I have been persuaded. That's what I am going to do. But unfortunately, I don't have the time to do...