Saudi Islamic police told not to spy on people

Saudi Arabia’s top scholar has urged the country’s feared Islamic police not to spy on people and confine their operations only to outdoors.

Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al Shaikh, the Gulf Kingdom’s Mufti (religious chief), said the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice should adopt easy ways in fighting evil and avert recurrent mistakes.

“I call on you to concentrate your work on changing bad practices outdoors…you should not spy on people indoors,” he said in a lecture in Riyadh.

“You must do you job with tolerance and forgiveness…all people make mistakes but you should not make more mistakes than the other people,” he said in the lecture, carried in Saudi newspapers on Saturday.

Shaikh’s remarks followed growing public complaints about the Commission, the most influential Islamic law enforcement body in the Gulf Kingdom.