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| Arabia |
| Commission Members Probed for Forced Entry and Murder |
| 2007-05-28 |
| Authorities are investigating a case of murder involving an alleged forced entry into a house and the beating to death of a citizen by members of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. The deceased has been identified as Sulaiman Al-Huraisi, 28. He is survived by his wife and an eight-year-old child. According to the brother of the deceased, Ali Al-Huraisi, the commission members entered his brother’s house in Al-Oraija district in Riyadh on Wednesday evening. They suspected him of possessing alcohol. “When they came into the house, they failed to show proper respect to the people there. There were women in the house as well as a six-month-old infant,” Al-Huraisi told Arab News. “It’s strange how these people ask women on the street where their male guardians are and yet they take it upon themselves to break into a house where there are women without having a female commission member present.” Al-Huraisi said: “Everyone in the house, including my elderly father, was arrested and taken to the Oraija commission center,” he said. The father of the deceased said that commission members continued to beat his handcuffed son, even though he was already covered in blood, until he died at the center. Ali Al-Huraisi said that he was not against the work of the commission in the Kingdom, but pointed out, “Even if they did establish that my brother had alcohol in the house, their mission is only to detain him and turn him over to the relevant authorities.” He said that his brother’s human rights had been completely violated and that by their acts, the commission members had shown they felt free to act as judge, jury and executioner. He went on to say, “Even terrorists — people who plot to destroy our nation — are not harmed when they surrender to security officers. They are arrested and are investigated by authorities. But they treated my brother as if he were worse than a terrorist. In fact, they did not treat him as a human being at all. He was detained after forced entry into his house and beaten to death before the eyes of his own family.” He said that he had refused to accept his brother’s body from the morgue and would do so “only after we are recognized as human beings with dignity. I call on Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah and Crown Prince Sultan, as well as senior Saudi officials, to establish justice and return honor to our family.” Interior Minister Prince Naif last year limited the powers of the commission to arresting suspects and handing them over to police. Security authorities will later hand the suspects and a report over to the Commission for Investigation. The directive states: “The missions of all committees set up under the regional governorates (for investigative purposes) have been transferred to the Commission for Investigation.” A copy of the directive was sent to all governors and to the heads of both commissions, the Saudi Press Agency reported. A spokesman for Riyadh police, Maj. Sami Al-Shuwairikh, told Arab News that the investigation into the alleged murder was ongoing. “It is still too early to announce the results of the investigation. Only when the investigation has been completed will we be able to establish whether the death was an act of murder,” he added. The officer denied a Reuters news agency report that the case had been transferred to the Interior Ministry. Public criticism of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice has increased over the past year. The president of the commission, Sheikh Ibrahim Al-Ghaith, told Arab News in an interview in March that “members of the commission are not above the law.” He said that commission members, like any person, were subject to punishment if proven guilty of an offense. His statement, however, contradicts a fatwa (religious ruling or edict) issued 40 years ago which states that members of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice may not be tried. Al-Ghaith was unavailable for comment yesterday. In a report issued last week, the National Society for Human Rights (NSHR) cited a number of human rights violations by commission members. These violations, the NSHR report pointed out, are also violations of international treaties to which the Kingdom is a signatory. In the report, the NSHR mentioned that members of the commission had forcefully entered houses, beaten people and humiliated them during investigations, confiscated personal belongings and carried out unnecessary body searches. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #2 Isn't "forced entry" a type of probe? /ducking & running> |
| Posted by: FOTSGreg 2007-05-28 10:52 |
| #1 That's why I joined the CFTPOVAPOV. The unnecessary body searches! Va va voom! |
| Posted by: gromky 2007-05-28 06:10 |