Hazem Al-Mutairi Okaz/Saudi Gazette RIYADH — Anybody found guilty of blackmail will be named and shamed in all local newspapers and also on social media, said the head of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (Haia). Abdullatif Al-Asheikh, who was addressing a press conference at the Haia headquarters in Riyadh on Sunday, asked judges to treat blackmail as a serious crime and impose stronger discretionary punishments. "When put into prisons, the blackmailers should not be eligible for royal pardons or released on bail," he said, asking investigators never to be sympathetic with blackmailers when interrogating them. Al-Asheikh said three blackmailers who were recently apprehended in Riyadh would have their names and pictures published in the newspapers. He added that journalists and photographers will be invited whenever such an offender is caught and convicted. Revealing the details of the three recent cases, all unrelated, Al-Asheikh said a young Saudi man who was working in one of the military sectors met a married woman online. Al-Asheikh said the blackmailer entered the woman's home in the capital's Al-Rawdah District and tried to rape her. "Two times the woman took her children and hid herself in the roof and finally informed the Haia, which sent some of its members to arrest the man," he said. In the second case, he said, another young Saudi also met a woman online and threatened to circulate her photos if she did not sleep with him. He said the woman informed the Haia and the man shot at its members when they tried to arrest him. He said no member was killed or injured and added that hashish and amphetamine pills were found with him. Al-Asheikh said the third case involved a husband and his wife who used to threaten married women, widows and divorcees that they would publish their photos if they did not pay them money. Al-Asheikh said the man was asking a woman to pay him SR7,000 when he was caught. Al-Asheikh warned women and young girls not to fall prey to the blackmailers and to be very careful when meeting men on the Internet. In case of any kind of harassment, they should immediately alert the authorities, he said.
