Saudi Arabia fires adviser for anti-women reform comment

Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah has fired an ultraconservative adviser who publicly criticised the easing of some restrictions on women as an attempt to Westernise the country. The official Saudi Press Agency reported Friday that 81-year-old Sheik Abdul-Mohsen al-Obeikan was sacked but did not add further details.
Al-Obeikan had told a local radio station that officials were working to Westernise and secularise laws in the majority Muslim country by “legalising taboos.”
“This situation is a very dangerous one that is linked to schemes by influential people to corrupt Muslim society by removing women from their natural position,” he said in remarks recently broadcast on the station UFM, the Associated Press reports.
After his dismissal, al-Obeikan posted on his Twitter account a statement saying he hopes that the kingdom’s rulers are kept away from “bad advisers.”
King Abdullah has upset some hardline clerics by easing some restrictions related to women, including allowing them to vote and run in 2015 municipal elections.
In recent months, many Saudi women note that the mutawa, or “religious police,” have become less aggressive under a newly appointed leader and are no longer allowed to carry canes to beat women guilty of such violations as failing to fully cover their hair in public.
Volunteers are also no longer permitted in the mutawa, in an apparent effort to rein in especially zealous freelancers.
In a recent incident at the elegant Centria shopping mall in downtown Riyadh three men — the mutawa officer in charge, a trainee and a uniformed policeman — were seen patrolling the upper levels of the chic shopping centre.
But they were notably low-key, quietly urging one young Saudi woman, with a few strands of hair showing, to cover herself.
When she noted (accurately) that she was covered, the officer, who followed tradition by not looking her directly in the eye during the exchange, walked on, saying only, “May God guide you to the correct path.”
In other signs of easing, a ban on young men in malls — to tamp down harassment of young girls through overt flirting and staring — has also been lifted, prompting the normal level of arms-length eye contact, whistles, gestures and frenzied texting on everpresent iPhones.
In a further move viewed as reform, a 2006 law banning men (mainly foreign clerks) from working in lingerie shops is also finally being applied.
The system, aimed at preventing women from working in retail stores, had created an odd and embarrassing state of affairs in which Saudi women were forced to buy intimate apparel from a man.
Such shops, though, are still carefully controlled. Signs noting that shopping is for “family” only — meaning a man with her husband or women only — keeps out curious young males from examining the frilly wares.