Plan for religious police in Yemen criticized

SANA’A, Yemen — The hard-line cleric Sheikh Abdul Majeed al-Zindani is leading a group of clerics who demand a religious police force in Yemen. The national civil society in Sana’a has condemned calls by clerics for the establishment of a religious police, or "authority to promote virtue and curb vice," as an attack on civil rights and freedom of expression.

Approximately 50 representatives of a variety of organizations who gathered at the Sana’a al Jawi Forum in early June said establishing a "religious police" is unconstitutional and contravenes the state’s duty to protect individual rights. They subsequently pledged to organize campaigns against it.

"Such an authority under the pretext of countering vice is only another façade for political oppression through the use of religion," read a joint press release issued by nine of the organizations. "It is just an outcome of the coalition between the political and religious institutions and is meant to harass and intimidate political activists critical of government policies."

Religious hard-liners including Sheik Abdul Majeed al-Zindani and Hamud al-Tharehi, leading figures in the Islamist Islah Party, announced they had approached the president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, with a proposal to set up a 25-member national committee for the promotion of virtue and prevention of vice.

The clerics, led by al-Zindani, rector of the religious al-Eman University, which is accused by the United States of financing terrorism, said vice and debauchery are widespread in Yemen.
According to al-Tharehi, the committee would comprise prominent clerics and five government officials like the ministers of culture, tourism and information.

Al-Tharehi said the opposition to their initiative, which is still in the hands of the president, will not succeed in thwarting it.
He said 99 percent of Yemenis will vote for the committee if given the chance.

Al-Tharehi said the committee would target hotels selling alcohol and showing pornographic TV channels, but he insisted individuals’ rights and freedoms would not be threatened.