Saudi Arabia cracks down on ‘immoral acts’

Saudi Arabia has arrested more than 50 suspects for crimes including prostitution and begging after Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the creation of a unit to police “immoral acts”, following years of loosening the kingdom’s hardline social restrictions, Report informs via Financial Times.

The Ministry of Interior’s new unit — set up to address “community security and human trafficking” — has arrested 11 women for prostitution, the first time Saudi authorities have publicly acknowledged the existence of the practice in more than a decade.

It has also rounded up dozens of foreigners for “immoral acts” in massage parlours and for forcing women and children to work as street beggars.

The initiative has drawn comparisons with the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, a religious police force that was long notorious for harshly enforcing some of the world’s strictest gender segregation and moral codes before Prince Mohammed stripped it of many of its powers in 2016.

The de facto ruler has since pushed an aggressive agenda to diversify the economy and relax strict social and religious mores, such as by lifting decades-long bans on music concerts and cinemas. While the government announced a “public decency” law in 2019, it has not been strictly enforced.