Mutaween (Religious Police)

Islamists frequently refer to the commandment for "Enjoining Good and Forbidding Evil".^[3]

Afghanistan

The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan imposed a strict version of Shari'ah enforced by the religious police.

In a February 2007 speech at the American Enterprise Institute, George W. Bush said, "In 2001, Afghanistan was a totalitarian nightmare -- a land where girls could not go to school, where religious police roamed the streets, where women were publicly whipped, where there were summary executions in Kabul's soccer stadium."^[4]

Iran

Since the Islamic Revolution, Iran has had a religious police that punishes offenders relentlessly. Jamal Karimi-Rad, in 2006, has vowed to work with other governmental organizations and continue the prosecution of social vice^[5] or "moral corruption". The Islamic officials use words like Western and un-Islamic as their talking points to justify such arrests.^[6][7][8] The Islamic government's obsession with the people's behavior and dress even reached a point when it would employ female religious police who "with a razor took off the lipstick from the lips" of other female citizens.^[9]

Women are required by the country's Islamic law to cover their hair and wear long, loose clothing to "protect their modesty".^[10]

The government relied on "special units" (yegan ha-ye vizhe), to complement the existing morality police, called "Enjoining the Good and Prohibiting the Forbidden" (Amr be Ma'ruf va Nahi az Monkar) in an effort to combat "un-Islamic behavior" and social corruption among the young. These auxiliaries were to assist in enforcing the Islamic Republic's strict rules of moral behavior. Credible press reports indicated members of this morality force chased and beat persons in the streets for offenses such as listening to music or, in the case of women, wearing makeup or clothing regarded as insufficiently modest or being accompanied by unrelated men.^[11]

The religious police is extremely disliked by some Iranian teenagers and youths.^[12]

In Iran, now all government-affilated people like the police of the interior ministry, the Basij of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards and Ansar e Hezbollah^[13] work in tandem to curb un-Islamic demeanor. For example, any of them has the legal authority to question and take into custody people who, inter alia, flirt or women without the proper hijab.

However, the Islamic Republic of Iran allows women to attend educational institutions, drive, and work. Therefore, the Islamic laws are not as severe as they were in the Islamic State of Afghanistan.

Saudi Arabia

The Saudi Arabian Mutaween are tasked with enforcing Shari'ah as defined by the government; purportedly the Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice "comprises more than 3,500 officers in addition to thousands of volunteers...often accompanied by a police escort" who have the power to arrest unrelated males and females caught socializing, enforce Islamic dress-codes, prayer schedules, and Islamic dietary laws prohibiting the consumption or sale of alcoholic beverages and pork, and seize banned consumer products and media regarded as un-Islamic (such as CDs/DVDs of various Western musical groups, television shows and film). Additionally, they actively prevent the practice or proselytizing of other religions within Saudi Arabia, where such is banned.^[14]

The police have issued a decree banning the sale of dogs and cats, seen as a sign of Western influence. The decree which applies to the Red Sea port city of Jiddah and the holy city of Mecca bans the sale of cats and dogs because “some youths have been buying them and parading them in public,” according to a memo from the Municipal Affairs Ministry to Jiddah’s city government.^[15]

The Saudi mutaween have launched a website where people can anonymously report tips about un-Islamic activities within that country.

Other countries

There are morality police forces in other places, too. For example, they can be found in Indonesia,^[16] northern Nigeria, Malaysia,^[17] the Gaza Strip,^[18][19] and elsewhere.

• Abdul Rashid Ghazi

Iran

• Iran police in fashion crackdown- BBC News, July 12, 2004
• Old Iran... ...Vs. New - Scott Macleod, TIME, July 6, 1998
• Generation ex-communicated - Helena Smith, The Guardian, September 3, 2002
• Islamo-morality Police Busy In Iran - City Tackles Those 'Titillating Mannequins'
• Iranians arrested for net dating - BBC News, March 3, 2003
• Iran to intensify dress crackdown - BBC News, July 15, 2007
• Police To Start New Wave Of Crackdown On Young Boys - July 15, 2007

Saudi Arabia

• "Catholic priest arrested and expelled from Riyadh - Asia News, April 10, 2006
• "Saudi police 'stopped' fire rescue" - BBC News, March 15, 2002
• The Saudi Media Debates Flogging by the Saudi Religious Police - MEMRI, January 19, 2004
• Saudis Arrest Christians For Spreading 'Poison' - NY Sun, May 2, 2005
• Inside Saudi Arabia
• "Saudi minister rebukes religious police" -BBC News, November 4, 2002
• Website of Saudi Mutaween (Arabic)
• "Egyptian Coptic Christians allege police torture"
• Charges dropped against Saudi police - Abdullah Shihri, Miami Herald, July 31, 2007

Videos

• Arrest of Iranian girl for not wearing head scarf properly! April 2007 Tehran - Youtube
• The Interviews - Google Videos