ARAR: A schoolteacher has accused the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (the Hai'a) of trying to frame him by using an orphan girl to involve him in an act of immorality. Abdullah Al-Enizi said the incident, which he claims was motivated by previous ill-feeling between him and a member of the Hai'a, led to his dismissal from the school where he worked. Abdullah Al-Mushaiti, the spokesman for the Hai'a in the Northern Border Province, said, however, that the claims bore “no truth at all”. “The teacher in question has been detained on various occasions for involvement in immoral incidents,” Al-Mushaiti said. Al-Enizi, however, is in possession of what he claims is a confession by the girl, complete with her fingerprint and witnessed by her father and a mosque imam, which states that “the teacher has been unjustly treated”, and that it was the Hai'a who asked her to accuse of him blackmail and trick him. A court in Arar had convicted Al-Enizi to a year in prison, 250 lashes of the whip, and a fine of SR10,000, but the sentence was rejected on appeal. The case was reheard, however, and after another appeal from prosecutors and a series of legal arguments over articles in the information crime law, Al-Enizi saw his sentence rise to two years' prison. At this point he was also removed from his teaching post. According to Al-Enizi, the enmity between him and a member of the Hai'a started when the latter detained him while in the company of his sister. Al-Enizi and his sister were held at Hai'a offices, prompting Al-Enizi to lodge a complaint, and a series of other incidents ensued. “The second incident,” Al-Enizi explained, “involved a heated argument between the Hai'a and my brother in front of our house for reasons which are not clear.” On a third occasion, he says he was told to attend an “advisory session” in Ramadan at Hai'a offices, where he alleges he was attacked by a Hai'a driver who broke his finger. “The fourth incident was when they stopped me in my car and they claimed I was listening to a recording of a licentious poem,” he said.
