A man and wife are in jail at Al-Jami'a Police Station accused of attacking staff from the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (the Hai'a) in the Al-Rawabi district of Jeddah. The couple had reportedly gone to offices of the Hai'a with their son after he had earlier complained of being “maltreated” by Hai'a staff while outside a girls' school, but the appearance of the three led the Hai'a to call in police and claim that the parents and son had attacked Hai'a staff at the office. A Hai'a official in Al-Rawabi declined to comment on the issue, but a source at the Commission for Investigation and Prosecution (CIP) said the case would be turned over to them to decide whether the couple should be released or not once details had been established. A legal advisor to the Human Rights Commission in Makkah said that without the specifics of the case it was difficult to comment, but added that the couple “should not be detained unless they had in fact attacked Hai'a staff”.
