The Saudi newspaper al-Sharq al-Awsat reports on a crackdown underway in the desert Sheikdom. The target is not al-Qaeda terrorist sympathizers, but domestic factories that produce ?versions of abayas (the obligatory all-covering black cloaks for women) that violate religious regulations.? The regulations are as follows, according to Dr. Abdul Aali ibn Ibrahim Abdul Aali, director of the department for combating trade fraud: ?decent women?s cloaks should be thick and not revealing; loose so they do not show the form of the body; and open from the front only. The black dress should cover all the body, be devoid of decorations, drawings, writing and other marks that would attract public attention.? The Commerce Ministry is coordinating its crackdown with the Commission for Promoting Virtue and Preventing Vice. Violators, reports the newspaper, will find themselves punished and the abayas ?confiscated and destroyed.?
Officials were most likely worried about a repeat of last October?s mass response to the marketing of abayas with the Arabic phrase ?Dare you touch me?? printed on their backs. Salesmen at the time told the Saudi Arab News that the initial shipment of the provocative abayas sold out immediately. Unfortunately for the salesmen, the Commerce Ministry ?ordered all its branches in the Kingdom to withdraw the cloak from shopping centers, and inspectors conducted raids on women?s clothes shops,? reported the Saudi newspaper.
According to the article, ?non-regulation cloaks? have increasingly been seen? in the Kingdom?s bigger cities.? The newspaper, published in London, reminds readers, ?Saudi women are veiled in black in public and are not allowed to travel without the approval of a husband or father.? At the King Faisal University, college officials recently ?forbade them [women] from wearing abayas that did not include a veil to cover their heads.?
Officials were most likely worried about a repeat of last October?s mass response to the marketing of abayas with the Arabic phrase ?Dare you touch me?? printed on their backs. Salesmen at the time told the Saudi Arab News that the initial shipment of the provocative abayas sold out immediately. Unfortunately for the salesmen, the Commerce Ministry ?ordered all its branches in the Kingdom to withdraw the cloak from shopping centers, and inspectors conducted raids on women?s clothes shops,? reported the Saudi newspaper.
According to the article, ?non-regulation cloaks? have increasingly been seen? in the Kingdom?s bigger cities.? The newspaper, published in London, reminds readers, ?Saudi women are veiled in black in public and are not allowed to travel without the approval of a husband or father.? At the King Faisal University, college officials recently ?forbade them [women] from wearing abayas that did not include a veil to cover their heads.?