Armies of Liberation

Yemen Observer

The newly established vice and virtue committee elected Sheikh Abdulmajid al-Zindani as a president of the committee, Sheikh Sadiq Bin Abdullah Bin Hussein al-Ahmar vice president and Sheikh Hamoud al-Tharihi as a Secretary General, said Sheikh Hamoud al-Tharihi.

He added that Ali Abdu Rabo al-Awadhi , Abdullah Hasan Khairat and Sheikh Mohammed al-Baidhani were also elected as assistant secretary generals.
Altharihi also said that the committee will resume its meetings on Monday to finalize its structure and to discuss ways of implementing the resolutions and recommendations of the scholars forum that was held last month. According to al-Tharihi based on the results of the Monday meeting the committee is communicate with the president of the republic to present him the results and resolutions of the forum.

“The committee will also follow up the government to do its duties for fighting vice and promoting virtue, because it’s the government responsibility to fight vice or to change irregularities by hand,” said Sheikh Hamoud al-Tharihi.
Many civil society organizations have opposed the creation of the vice and virtue committee among them was the Yemeni Women union that launched a sit in and submitted a complain to the parliament against the newly established vice and virtue committee about a booklet circulated during the forum. The booklet prohibited the proposed quota system and included many insults and humiliation of women.

Thousands of Yemeni Muslim Sheikhs and scholars as well as some sympathizer tribal sheikhs had called for establishing the vice and virtue organization during their conference held in Sana’a last month.

During that meeting the chairman of the preparatory committee of the vice and virtue, Dr. currently president of the vice and virtue committee Abdulmajid al-Zindani illustrated the functions and the mechanisms of the vice and virtue organization and the roles to be played by the authorities in charge in the government and the roles of the public to combat vice and realize virtue .

Al-Zindani said that the governmental authorities in charge should be utilized and should visualize the virtue police and the general prosecution as well as the ministry of endowments and guidance to combat the different vice and malpractices. On this respect al-Zindani called on the governmental authorities to close down and curb all vice and prostitution institutions, in reference to the nightclubs, bars, and all other entertainment facilities.

He added that the role of the vice and virtue and the role of the religious scholars will be realized firstly by uniting the word and attitudes of the scholars and secondly through visualizing the role of the scholars’ organization.

Al-Zindani added that the public role for fighting vice should be represented in fighting vice ‘by tongue’ through reporting and complaining to the authorities in charge about any violations of the Islamic rules.

During the same meeting Sheikh Hamoud al-Tharihi, one of the establishers of the vice and virtue organization, currently secretary general of the vice and virtue committee a leader in the Islah Islamic party in his paperwork that he read at the conference justified the establishment of the vice and virtue organization to the spread of vice in the country.

He illustrated a number of practices that contradict with the Islamic rules among them he said was the spread of the prostitution facilities, spread of places that sell wines, and drugs, spread of places that sell porno, singing and dancing CDs , hotels that facilitate watching scrambled satellite channels ,spread of the phenomenon of girls absenting from schools, spread of the tourism marriage and the Yemeni media and satellite channel for the sacristy of the holy month of Ramadhan “the Muslims’ fasting month”, in reference to broadcasting songs and women’ on TV. in Ramadhan month ‘.

BBC

But on 15 July, a panel of Islamic clerics - supported by prominent tribal chiefs - announced the creation of a Meeting for Protecting Virtue and Fighting Vice.

The unofficial body will alert Yemen’s police force to infringements of Islamic law and hold annual conferences to monitor progress.

“This new vice and virtue movement has the potential to undermine the government,” says Rahma Hugaira, chair of Yemen’s Media Women Forum.

“Civil society groups are working hard to modernise society, to establish a social contract grounded in our constitution and reflected in our laws. A group using religion as a weapon threatens all the progress we have achieved.”

Vigilantes

The vice and virtue movement reportedly started in Hodeidah, where “morality guardians” began challenging women walking alone and driving without a chaperone.

What not to wear: Dresses on sale in Sanaa are not for public view
Couples were asked to prove they were married or closely related. Similar reports began to emerge from Yemen’s second city, Aden.

In June, security forces in Hodeidah arrested seven Christian missionaries. In Sanaa, a policemen accompanied by bearded vigilantes raided a Chinese massage parlour and a chain of restaurants.

The movement’s figurehead is Abdul Majid Zindani - a popular but controversial cleric who claims to have invented a cure for Aids.

He runs al-Iman university in Sanaa and recently won a licence to operate his own television channel. He speaks for the Muslim Brotherhood and plays a prominent role in the main opposition party, Islah.

In 2004, he was listed as a “specially designated global terrorist” by the US Treasury Department and the UN, but Yemen has taken no steps to freeze his assets.

Overplayed

Eighteen years after universal suffrage, Yemen remains a fragile democracy where party politics are still in formation.

President Ali Abdullah Saleh celebrated 30 years in power in July, and his General People’s Congress increases its share of the vote in every public ballot.

Sheikh Zindani is a controversial figure - loved by many, but also feared
Mr Saleh has yet to comment on Sheikh Zindani’s initiative, but Ms Hugaira believes his movement is a symptom of politics in flux ahead of parliamentary elections next April.

“Zindani’s committee represents a big threat that could close the space for [women's organisations] in civil society,” she says

Ali Saif Hassan, director of the Political Development Forum, thinks Sheikh Zindani has overplayed his hand.

“The media’s response was so strong the fundamentalists have lost their case. They’re in a weaker position.”

The vice and virtue authority has already condemned a proposal allocating 15% of parliamentary seats to women in 2009 - and decreed a woman’s place is in the home.

Its list of condemned practices includes night-clubs, mixed-sex education, concerts and fashion shows.

Young Yemenis are divided on the issue. “Zindani is massive!” grinned my teenage taxi driver, promptly shoving a cassette of the Koran into his stereo.

But others, like Ashwaq, fear his movement will reverse Yemen’s tentative liberalisation - and place further limits on personal freedom and ambition.

When Ashwaq and her sisters are ready to leave the house, they cloak themselves in black to walk the 100 metres to the wedding where they will be separated from men throughout the celebrations.

Party gowns, elaborate hairstyles and make-up disappear under black gauze - just a few frills and high heels are visible. Ashwarq, among a minority of women in Yemen, leaves her face bare.

“We already have plenty of restrictions and obstacles. We don’t need any more,” she says.