Riyadh (Pakistan News Online) The government in Saudi Arabia has launched a crackdown on “immoral activities”.
According to media reports, a new unit of the Saudi Interior Ministry has arrested more than 50 people, including 11 women, on charges of prostitution. In addition, dozens of foreigners have been detained on charges of illegal activities in massage parlors and forcing women and children to beg.
This is the first time that Saudi authorities have acknowledged the existence of prostitution in the country in a decade. Last month, four foreigners were arrested in Riyadh for engaging in “immoral activities” at a massage center, while three foreigner women were detained on charges of prostitution during a raid on a hotel.
The crackdown is reminiscent of Saudi Arabia’s former religious police force, the Mutawa (Committee for Enjoining Right and Forbidding Wrong), which was made ineffective under the crown prince’s reforms in 2016.
According to Daily Pakistan “Saudi Arabia is the center of Islam, no one can be allowed to openly engage in immoral activities here,” says Khalid al-Sulaiman, a columnist for the local newspaper Okaz.