The Bureau of Investigation and Prosecution (BIP) in Tabuk is interrogating members of the Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, the Hai'a, for allegedly beating a woman held here at its local headquarters. The BIP is also probing the woman's claim that the Hai'a used a man to trap her. The Hai'a had claimed the woman had asked the man to help her travel to Jeddah from Tabuk. People offering Maghreb prayers at a nearby mosque last Friday heard the woman's screams coming from the Hai'a building and called the police. The police took the girl to the hospital where doctors found having bruises and signs of choking on her neck. The woman said during the BIP interrogation that she asked the man – who called the Hai'a and told them that she was escaping from her parents – to simply take her to the SAPTCO bus station. She claims she wanted to return to her family in Jeddah – from where she had escaped previously. Hai'a Director General in Tabuk, Sulaiman Al-Enizi, rejected the allegations and said “a man called and said that a woman asked him to smuggle her to Jeddah and we came and arrested her”. Sources said that the man was with the girl when she was arrested at a gas station 15 km outside the city. He was not questioned. Seven witnesses, including old men, rejected the Hai'a statement that the woman was interrogated in the car. They said the woman had screamed out loudly for 40 minutes. They said it seemed like she was being forced inside the building.
