Do the Saudis have a foreign bias?

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SAUDI ARABIA

Saudi religious police reject foreign bias claim

'There is no difference between a foreign resident and a Saudi national,' says Head of Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice

By Habib Toumi, Bureau Chief

September 3, 2014

 

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Manama: The head of Saudi Arabia’s Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice has rejected accusations that the department’s swift investigation of an incident involving a couple was prompted by the British nationality of one of the persons involved.

“There is no difference between a foreign resident and a Saudi national when it comes to addressing issues,” Shaikh Abdul Lateef Al Shaikh said. “It is unfair to compare this case with other cases that took longer to resolve because of technicalities. In some cases, it was not up to the Commission to make decisions, but in other cases we did move swiftly and took the stringent decisions that were expected against those who abused or wronged others,” he told a TV station over the phone on Tuesday evening, local site Al Marsad reported.

However, several Saudis said on social networks that the prompt response by the Commission to the incident and the disciplinary measures taken against its staff were motivated mainly by the fact that one of those at the receiving end was a British national.

“Compare how the case of the Saudi female student who was killed in Britain is moving with the case of the British citizen in Saudi Arabia, and you can see a huge difference,” one blogger said, referring to Nahid Al Manea, the Saudi victim of a knife attack who was stabbed 16 times and left to die in a park in Colchester as she walked home from university. The police are still looking for the killer.

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“We feel that foreigners enjoy privileges that nationals or Arab expatriates do not,” another blogger said.

But Al Shaikh dismissed the claims as untrue. “The Commission does not consider nationalities when it seeks the truth,” he said. “The disciplinary actions it took were part of upholding people’s rights.”