Saudi's jail woman for coffee drinking @ Starbucks

madanthonywayne · Feb 11, 2008

The religious police have arrested a woman for the crime of having a cup of coffee with a male colleage at a Starbucks! While being held, she was strip searched. Seems ironic that the religious police would consider drinking coffee in a public place indecent, but would then forcibly strip search the woman.

The National Society for Human Rights (NSHR), Saudi Arabia’s non-governmental rights body, will address the Governorate of Riyadh regarding Yara, a 36-year-old Jeddah-based businesswoman who was apprehended by the religious police and thrown in Al-Malaz Prison on Monday.

Yara said she endured a humiliating and frightening hours-long ordeal that began with her arrest by a member of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice for having coffee with an unrelated man in a Starbucks cafe in Riyadh.

“We have visited Yara at home and took her official complaint,” NSHR member Al-Jawhara Al-Angari told Arab News yesterday. “The complaint will be sent to the main office in Riyadh where further notices from our part will be added. It will then be sent to the Governorate of Riyadh.”

Yara says she was forced to fingerprint two confessions and was strip-searched in the prison. She also said she was produced before a “legal sheikh” who sat behind a one-way glass window and told her she would go to hell for the moral crimes she had committed.

The incident occurred on the same day that Yakin Ertürk, the special rapporteur of the United Nations Human Rights Council on Violence Against Women, arrived in the Kingdom on a 10-day visit.

A member of the religious police apprehended Yara for the moral crime of “khulwa” (a state of seclusion with an unrelated man). The woman’s colleague, a Syrian financial analyst, was also arrested and released the following day.

According to Al-Angari, several serious violations of human rights were apparent in this case. “First of all, Yara was not in a state of khulwa,” said Al-Angari. “She was in a public place where people were all around them,” said Al-Angari.

Yara told the NSHR that the commission member who arrested her was not accompanied by a police officer and that he didn’t provide any documentation, or even his name. He also prevented her from contacting relatives.

“She had relatives in Riyadh at the time whom she could have contacted,” said Al-Angari. “A relative should have come to be with her when she was being taken somewhere.”

After the commission member forced Yara to go with him in a taxi, she said that she was placed in a GMC parked in front of a local commission center.

This, said Al-Angari, is a direct violation of an Interior Ministry order that commission members are not to hold suspects but rather turn them over to proper authorities for investigation.

“The confiscation of her mobile and the refusal of the commission member to allow her to contact her husband or any other relative to come to her rescue was another violation,” Al-Angari said.

Another human rights violation was forcing Yara to fingerprint a confession under duress.

Having grown up in the US, Yara’s Arabic language skills are insufficient to have been able to comprehend what was written on the document she was compelled to sign.

“She cannot read Arabic,” Al-Angari said. “The commission member should have read to her what she was going to fingerprint. She had no idea what she was fingerprinting. She obliged in a state of panic.”

The NSHR official described the manner in which Yara was strip-searched in prison as “inhuman”.

“It was degrading to her, both mentally and physically. The fact that she was asked to remove her clothes like that implied she was a criminal,” she said.

The NSHR member said the rights body would urge the Governorate of Riyadh to drop all fingerprinted confession papers from Yara’s public file.

“We also will take note of the violations that had occurred in this case and notify the governorate about them. We further will ask that Yara be compensated for the damages she sustained,” she said.
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http://www.arabnews.com/?page=1&section=0&article=106645&d=10&m=2&y=2008

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Bells · Feb 11, 2008

madanthonywayne said: ↑

Seems ironic that the religious police would consider drinking coffee in a public place indecent, but would then forcibly strip search the woman.
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What is more ironic is that she was arrested for having coffee in a public space with an unrelated male, and then forced to get into a car with the male person who arrested her, who is also an unrelated male.

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Zakariya04 · Feb 11, 2008

the fact that the muthafuckin bullshit house of saud have starbucks in the country they govern pisses me off eough anyway.

bunch of fuckin punk bitches!!!

all in all these buitches are hypocriticial fuckin pricks.. as the Amazing one states

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DeepThought · Feb 11, 2008

madanthonywayne said: ↑

The religious police have arrested a woman for the crime of having a cup of coffee with a male colleage at a Starbucks! While being held, she was strip searched. Seems ironic that the religious police would consider drinking coffee in a public place indecent, but would then forcibly strip search the woman.
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The crime is being in a public place with an unrelated male without a chaperone.

What exactly is there to complain about?

Zakariya04 · Feb 11, 2008

DeepThought said: ↑

The crime is being in a public place with an unrelated male without a chaperone.

What exactly is there to complain about?
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the house of saud and their bunch of fuckers are the buiggest hypocirtical cunts on the fuckin planet, thats enogub to complain abotu.

and the fuckers are even profiteering from Hajj

the fuckas!!!

Myles · Feb 11, 2008

madanthonywayne said: ↑

The religious police have arrested a woman for the crime of having a cup of coffee with a male colleage at a Starbucks! While being held, she was strip searched. Seems ironic that the religious police would consider drinking coffee in a public place indecent, but would then forcibly strip search the woman.
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=1&section=0&article=106645&d=10&m=2&y=2008
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Do you honestly expect a rational response on this topic ? Anything the religious police regard as indecent is, by definition, indecent, Quite simple really. I have spent a short time in that depressing country and seen the fanatical police in action.

The right way to handle the situation is to give the offending couple a few hundred lashes to teach them the error of their ways

Challenger78 · Feb 11, 2008

Like WTF ?
Seriously. Is this what passes for Entertainment in that country ?
This (like protesting at gay funerals..or causing them), is religion taken to the extreme.

Myles · Feb 11, 2008

Zakariya04 said: ↑

the house of saud and their bunch of fuckers are the buiggest hypocirtical cunts on the fuckin planet, thats enogub to complain abotu.

and the fuckers are even profiteering from Hajj

the fuckas!!!
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The US and the UK will not say a word against Saudi because it might predjudice arms sales and, as we all know, money is more important than people.

Here, in the UK, Tony Blair blocked an enquiry into corruption between a British firm and Saudis. His reaon ? It would serve no useful purpose. THe Saudis had condemned the enquiry from the outset and made it clear that it could predjudice and arms deal which was under discussion,

So hypocrisy is not confined to Saudi, but I'm sure you know that.

Zakariya04 · Feb 11, 2008

Myles said: ↑

The US and the UK will not say a word against Saudi because it might predjudice arms sales and, as we all know, money is more important than people.

Here, in the UK, Tony Blair blocked an enquiry into corruption between a British firm and Saudis. His reaon ? It would serve no useful purpose. THe Saudis had condemned the enquiry from the outset and made it clear that it could predjudice and arms deal which was under discussion,

So hypocrisy is not confined to Saudi, but I'm sure you know that.
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they are all fuckas myles.. its not jsut arms sales but opil and their export of whabbism and deobandism etc,....

good post mate

John99 · Feb 11, 2008

Sounds to me like someone wanted to do a strip search.:itold: Realllllly BAD.

John99 · Feb 11, 2008

It is possible she was smuggling coffee beans.

Challenger78 · Feb 11, 2008

John99 said: ↑

It is possible she was smuggling coffee beans.
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and sugar.. We know how addictive that is.

Dr Lou Natic · Feb 11, 2008

SAM said Saudi Arabia was a multicultural utopia where everyone was all chilled out and cool and America could learn a thing or too from the ultra modern Saudi Arabia and how open minded and cool it's culture is.

Are you calling SAM a liar? I will have to report you if you are...

Zakariya04 · Feb 11, 2008

Dr Lou Natic said: ↑

SAM said Saudi Arabia was a multicultural utopia where everyone was all chilled out and cool and America could learn a thing or too from the ultra modern Saudi Arabia and how open minded and cool it's culture is.

Are you calling SAM a liar? I will have to report you if you are...
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hahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahahah

nice one doc lou

S.A.M. · Feb 11, 2008

Dr Lou Natic said: ↑

SAM said Saudi Arabia was a multicultural utopia where everyone was all chilled out and cool and America could learn a thing or too from the ultra modern Saudi Arabia and how open minded and cool it's culture is.

Are you calling SAM a liar? I will have to report you if you are...
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The religious police suck. Even the Saudis think so.

The "virtue commission", if you hadn't figured it out, is the Religious Police. A complete misnomer, of course. Makes them sound like a group of choirboys. The reality is that they are the no-hopers, the social misfits, the failed Imams, the men who will never be married even though we have a surplus of eligible unmarried women. Ugly in looks, ugly in nature, ugly in behavior. If the Saudi gene pool had a pool boy, they'd have been sucked out with the dead insects and rotting leaves, and emptied down the drain long ago.

And the change is that while they will still be able to pounce on the unsuspecting victims (like the young Saudi pair I once saw wandering slowly up and down the aisles of the supermarket, deep in conversation alongside the frozen chickens, one sack of rice in the trolley, obviously in love, obviously not married, obviously keeping out of sight of their families, a doomed Romeo and Juliet story in the making), the Muttawa will only be able to make the arrest, but not indulge in their usual knockabout interrogation routine (The number of slaps increasing with the darkness of your skin, women usually treated slightly more leniently, but not necessarily).

And that change is A Good Thing. A step in the right direction, however small. For while the police have their faults, I would much rather be in their care than in the care of the Muttawa. The police may be lazy, and reluctant to go after anyone who looks remotely like a Prince, but they are not such a rule unto themselves, and do not have the reputation for mindless gratuitous abuse and violence that the Muttawa do.
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http://muttawa.blogspot.com/

Zakariya04 · Feb 11, 2008

S.A.M. said: ↑

The religious police suck. Even the Saudis think so.

http://muttawa.blogspot.com/
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what exactly do they suck samidy sam???

S.A.M. · Feb 11, 2008

Big Time, apparently.
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Zakariya04 · Feb 11, 2008

S.A.M. said: ↑

Big Time, apparently.
Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
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thank God i have never come in to the presence of these fuckas...

S.A.M. · Feb 11, 2008

Zakariya04 said: ↑

thank God i have never come in to the presence of these fuckas...
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Neither have I, though I have heard stories.

In the words of the Saudi from the link above:

Why The Religious Policeman?

Because, in my opinion, the Religious Police epitomize what is wrong with my country at present. They combine religious fanaticism and intolerance with the apparatus of a police state. They are recruited from the dregs of society, yet they presume to tell other God-fearing people how to conduct their religious lives. They killed innocent young lives in Makkah, yet they were never held to account.
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I'm a great believer in the Internet, and in the power of information to cast a light into the darker corners of our world. Saudi Arabia is certainly one of those dark corners. I'm hoping that people will recognize that on the whole we are good folk, just like anyone else, but caught between an ultra-conservative Royal dictatorship on one side, and a fundamentalist religious establishment on the other. I am hopeful that this will inform their opinions of us. I would also like, in my own small way, to educate opinion within Saudi Arabia and around the world that might start to engineer change in our country.
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They give the people a bad name.

John99 · Feb 11, 2008

S.A.M. said: ↑

They give the people a bad name.
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Wow, a psychologist would have a field day with that one.

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