RIYADH: Saudi Arabia will curb the powers of its notorious religious police charged with ensuring compliance with Islamic morality but often accused of abuses, a newspaper report said yesterday.
“The new system will set a mechanism for the field work of the committee’s men which hands over some of their specialisations to other state bodies, such as arrests and interrogations,” Al Hayat daily quoted religious police chief Sheikh Abdullatiff Abdel Aziz Al Sheikh as saying.
Agents of the body known as the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice will also be banned from carrying out “searches without prior approval from the governor,” he said.
Okaz daily also reported that the religious police agents will be prohibited from “standing at the entrances of shopping malls to prevent the entry of any person,” referring to attempts by agents to ban women who do not comply with the Islamic dress code and unmarried couples from entering malls.
Relatively moderate Sheikh, appointed in January as the new chief of the religious police, has raised hopes that a more lenient force will ease draconian social constraints in the Islamic country.
In June, Sheikh came out strongly against one of his men who ordered a woman to leave a mall because she was wearing nail polish.
The woman had defied the orders as she filmed her argument with the policeman and posted it onYouTube.
Libya PM’s proposed cabinet omits liberals
TRIPOLI: Libya’s newly elected Prime Minister Mustafa Abu Shagur yesterday submitted to the government a proposed cabinet line-up that excludes the country’s leading liberal coalition, a spokesman said.
“This list was presented today to the General National Congress,” said Omar Humeidan of the 200-member ruling assembly.
The congress would hold an extraordinary meeting on Thursday to vote on each minister, and Abu Shagur would be able to propose alternatives until Sunday if any of his choices are rejected.
Agencies
